Editing Uniform Resource Identifier (section)

=== Conception ===

URIs and URLs have a shared history. In 1990, [[Tim Berners-Lee|Tim Berners-Lee's]] proposals for [[hypertext]] implicitly introduced the idea of a URL as a short string representing a resource that is the target of a [[hyperlink]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Palmer |first1=Sean |title=The Early History of HTML |url=http://infomesh.net/html/history/early/ |website=infomesh.net |access-date=6 December 2020}}</ref> At the time, people referred to it as a "hypertext name"<ref>{{cite web |title=W3 Naming Schemes |url=https://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/Addressing.html |website=W3C |date=    24 February 1992 |access-date=6 December 2020}}</ref> or "document name".

Over the next three and a half years, as the [[World Wide Web|World Wide Web's]] core technologies of [[HTML]], [[HTTP]], and [[Web browser|web browsers]] developed, a need to distinguish a string that provided an address for a resource from a string that merely named a resource emerged. Although not yet formally defined, the term ''Uniform Resource Locator'' came to represent the former, and the more contentious ''Uniform Resource Name'' came to represent the latter. In July 1992 Berners-Lee's report on the [[Internet Engineering Task Force]] (IETF) "UDI (Universal Document Identifiers) [[Birds of a feather (computing)|BOF]]" mentions URLs (as Uniform Resource Locators), URNs (originally, as Unique Resource Numbers), and the need to charter a new working group.<ref>{{cite web |title=Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Internet Engineering Task Force |page=193 |url=https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/24.pdf |publisher=Corporation for National Research Initiatives |date=July 1992 |website=IETF|access-date=27 July 2021}}</ref> In November 1992 the IETF "URI Working Group" met for the first time.<ref>{{cite web |title=Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Internet Engineering Task Force |page=501 |url=https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/25.pdf |publisher=Corporation for National Research Initiatives |date=November 1992 |website=IETF |access-date=27 July 2021}}</ref>

During the debate over defining URLs and URNs, it became evident that the concepts embodied by the two terms were merely aspects of the fundamental, overarching, notion of resource ''identification''. In June 1994, the IETF published Berners-Lee's first ''Request for Comments'' that acknowledged the existence of URLs and URNs. Most importantly, it defined a formal syntax for ''Universal Resource Identifiers'' (i.e. URL-like strings whose precise syntaxes and semantics depended on their schemes). In addition, the {{IETF RFC|1630}} attempted to summarize the syntaxes of URL schemes in use at the time. It acknowledged – ''but did not standardize''—the existence of relative URLs and fragment identifiers.{{Ref RFC|1630}}