What is an XRI root authority?
An XRI root authority is the first subsegment in an XRI authority segment. An XRI root authority may either be a GCS character or a cross-reference. For example, xri://@foo*bar uses the “@” root authority and xri://(http://example.com) uses the (http://example.com) root authority. Root authorities allow communities to share a common namespace and uniquely identify shared resources (or resources that are used by multiple parties). XRI resolver clients must be configured with the bootstrap XRI resolution metadata necessary to locate a root authority. This is similar to the configuration of root DNS servers in a DNS resolver. Root authorities may be established by any community that needs interoperable identifier resolution. For instance, communities such as governments, the telecommunications industry, consortia, etc. might manage their own root authorities. There are also organizations that offer public root authorities for global context symbols. For example, see XDI.org (http://www.xd
