URI Syntax Limitations

Hello,

While studying the deployment of new protocols in Internet, I've found
some limitations to current URI syntax:

- Although URIs can include a port number, the transport protocol to be
used cannot be specified (i.e. UDP or TCP in DNS). Thus, each URI scheme
is bound to a single transport protocol. This limitation could hinder
the usage of newer protocols like SCTP in current applications (e.g.
HTTP over SCTP).

- Host identification is limited to plain IP addesses (no IPV6 scope id)
or DNS-like hostnames. Therefore, although each scheme could define an
alternative resolution mechanism for the "host" part, this limitation
could also hinder the deployment of newer Service Discovery (e.g. SLP)
or Load Balancing (e.g. Rserpool) protocols, that offer some kind of
alternative name-resolution mechanism.

Browsing the mailing list archive I've seen that some newer protocols
define some arguments in the query part (like "transport=SCTP") in their
URI formats in order to cope with the first issue.

However IMHO this mechanism could not be applied to all URI schemes
already defined, as the "query" part is optional, thus many schemes do
not allow any arguments.

Are there any proposed solutions to these issues?

Regards,
--Manuel Urueña


-- 
Manuel Uruen~a - Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
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