How widely deployed are "non-strict parsers" in RFC 3986

This question came up on the URN mailing list, but is essentially an URI 
question, so I'm copying the URI list and the co-author of the URI spec 
that I think will know the answer.

RFC 3986, in section 5.2.2 
(https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#section-5.2.2), mentions the following:

       -- A non-strict parser may ignore a scheme in the reference
       -- if it is identical to the base URI's scheme.
       --
       if ((not strict) and (R.scheme == Base.scheme)) then
          undefine(R.scheme);
       endif;

The term "non-strict" isn't found in any other place in RFC 3986. The 
question is how widely deployed such "non-strict" parsers are. E.g. are 
these things that still existed in 2005 when RFC 3986 was published, but 
are now essentially extinct, or e.g. did and do all browsers behave that 
way.

Many thanks for an enlightening answer.

Regards,   Martin.

Received on Monday, 26 September 2016 07:51:02 UTC