Distributed persistent systems often provide transparency of distribution at the cost of autonomy of object stores, efficiency of cooperation between them and scalability of the system. We propose a flexible model of distribution to support scalable persistent application systems that allows for both autonomous stores with low-cost, limited commitments to other stores and sophisticated models of interaction on a limited scale with maintainable inter-store references. Scalability would be provided by exposing the distribution of stores, with the use of extended URLs as global names. Autonomy of a store would be preserved by making it possible for the store to retain control over the objects it makes available for remote use.