Re: hosts: case-insensitive? (important)

Similar to the issue of "octets <=> ASCII conversion",
I do not see any change in the spec nor any answer to
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/uri/2004Mar/0014.html
(cited below).

I do not think that host should be case-insensitive in
the generic syntax, because this would unduely restrict
the use of URIs with potential future systems.

I know that others have made the same comment in private,
so I really wonder why it hasn't been addressed.

I'm not sure this issue can be addressed on the RFC
editor level, but it definitely should be addressed.

Regards,    Martin.


At 20:38 04/03/07 -0500, Martin Duerst wrote:

>In "3.2.2 Host", rfc2396bis-04 says:
>
>"Although host is case-insensitive, producers and
>normalizers should use lowercase for host names and hexadecimal
>addresses for the sake of uniformity, while only using uppercase
>letters for percent-encodings."
>
>It may be that all currently used systems of registry or service names
>are indeed case-insensitive, but it seems highly unadequate to restrict
>the use of URIs to future registry or service name systems that are
>case-insensitive. The text above seems to be a remainder of the
>time when host==DNS, and should be fixed, e.g. saying that many
>registry or service name systems are cases-insensitive, and that
>lower case should be used whenever it is known that the name used
>is case-insensitive, but that registry or service names may not
>always be case-insensitive.
>
>Section 6 should also be checked, there may be similar issues.
>
>Regards,    Martin.