Re: AppURL.org : 1. Pick a URL scheme

Hi Liron,

Liron Shapira [2013-08-03T16:30]:
> No, we want DNS to take over the role of making up URL schemes for apps. We want apps to use the system that exists today and works. We think the industry needs this as a stopgap measure until http-triggered app launching is universally supported.

Hmm… One of the worries I have is that in your documentation you are proposing a Well-Known-Location, see my previous email [1] and you might want to think about /.well-known/ RFC [2]

So I went to try and see what was happening so far and took the list documented on Apps directory [3] and I noticed that in fact the schema file was hosted at appurl. Hmmm… So are there using how the doc is recommending it.

 http://appurl.org/app/ebay.com/appurl.json

Let's see.

→ http GET http://appurl.org/apps/ | egrep -e '<a href="/app/http://(.*)/">([^<].*)</a>' | sed -e 's,<a href="/app/\(.*\)">.*,\1appurl.json,' | sed 's/^ *//g'
http://ebay.com/appurl.json
http://echofon.com/appurl.json
http://evernote.com/appurl.json
http://www.flixster.com/appurl.json
http://foursquare.com/appurl.json
http://grid6.us/appurl.json
http://www.imdb.com/appurl.json
http://instagram.com/appurl.json
http://pandora.com/appurl.json
http://www.panogramic.com/appurl.json
http://skype.com/appurl.json
http://open.spotify.com/appurl.json
http://twitter.com/appurl.json
http://www.wolframalpha.com/appurl.json
http://yelp.com/appurl.json


Which gives as a result that only two had a 200 OK.

ebay       404
echofon    301 -> 404
evernote   404 
flixter    302 -> 404
4sq        301 -> 404
grid6      200
imdb       404
instagram  404
pandora    404
panogramic 200
skype      301 -> 301 -> 404
spotify    404
twitter    301 -> 404
wolfram    404
yelp       404


On those two Grid6 and Panogramic, only one seems to be independent. Grid6 is owned by your company.

→ whois grid6.us | grep "Registrant Organization"
Registrant Organization: Quixey

→ whois panogramic.com | grep "Registrant Organization"
Registrant Organization: Nixter inc


So from this list only two 200 OK (with the well-known location issue already mentioned).
The rest is not implementing it on their own servers. 

Why it worries me? 
Because when you start to deploy things on the Web in public, they become part of the legacy of the Web. There is no eraser on the Web. Once it is deployed, it will stay. Developers will start using

http://appurl.org/app/ebay.com/appurl.json

instead of

http://ebay.com/.well-known/appurl.json

It will become a "fait accompli" if Quixey is successful.


Suggestions:

1. Do not make appurl.org/app something special with a json file 
2. Change the documentation to use /.well-known/ rfc 5785
3. In the case you *really* want appurl.org/app link, 
   make it a permanent redirect to the real one
   and ONLY for those which exist already. 
   Do NOT create one for those who do not have.




[1]: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2013Aug/0031.html
[2]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5785
[3]: http://appurl.org/apps/

-- 
Karl Dubost
http://www.la-grange.net/karl/