- From: Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 17:56:00 -0500
- To: Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>
- CC: timbl@w3.org, fielding@ics.uci.edu, masinter@parc.xerox.com, Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no, moore@cs.utk.edu, uri@bunyip.com, lassila@w3.org, swick@w3.org, tbray@textuality.com, jeanpa@microsoft.com, cmsmcq@uic.edu, dsr@w3.org, lehors@w3.org, ij@w3.org
Al Gilman wrote: > The HTML specification has trouble deciding which RFC(s) to cite > to define acceptable URLs. The right answer is that the HTML > spec should not be trying to define acceptable URLs. Documents don't try; people try. The people writing the HTML specs aren't trying to make this judgement. We're just trying to cite the standard for the generic syntax. > This is a > deal between the browser and the marketplace which is somewhat > disciplined through the registry efforts of the IETF, but does > not pass under the thumb of the HTML specification. Yeah verily. > The _HTML_ requirements on URLs are that they are expressed in > the appropriate SGML type so that they can be embedded in text > where an attribute value is needed. What strings (schemes) > browsers should be capable of handling is not the place of HTML > to define. That is the architecture bug at the moment. HTML > talks as though it defines URLs by reference to RFCs. HTML per > se shouldn't be pretending to regulate URLs at all. The IETF > process should be cited as a source for more information. This > is an informative, not normative clause, i.e. the more > information available from the IETF is outside the scope of the > HTML language rules. Huh? So you want the HTML spec to say The value of the href attribute is a URI. For the definition of the term URI, go hang out at the IETF for a while until you figure it out. ??? I just want it to say: The value of the href attribute is a URI[RFCXXX]. Larry has suggested that I write The value of the href attribute is a URI[W3C-NOTE-xxxx]. I'll do that if I have to, but I think it stresses the W3C/IETF relationship. In the area of URIs, I think Harald and I have agreed on a "One works, the other facilitates"[1] relationship, just like for HTTP. I'd like Harald to confirm. [1] Presentation given at the W3C Advisory Committe in Reading, England, January 1996 http://www.apps.ietf.org/apps/w3c/solutions.html -- Dan Connolly, W3C Architecture Domain Lead http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
Received on Friday, 24 October 1997 18:54:58 UTC