Re: URI versus URI Reference

"Paul W. Abrahams" wrote:

> Hmm.  Are you asserting that the intent of RFC 2396 to limit the potential schemes to
> those enumerated in RFC 1738 (which never utters the acronym URI anyway)?  The approach of
> RFC 2396 seems to be (Sec. 3.2) to define how all of this works for arbitrary schemes that
> satisfy a certain syntax.

Up to a point.  But the specific syntax of URIs is not defined in 2396;
it remains in 1738 *and other RFCs*, which are not mentioned because no
part of them is overridden by 2396.

> It says that.  And it also says, in the first paragraph of the abstract, that it revises
> and replaces the generic definitions in RFC 1738 and RFC 1808.   So what is one to make of
> that?   I'd say that "replaces" explains what "updates" means.  But even if you disagree
> with that, I think you'd agree that there are two different statements here with possibly
> two different meanings.

Abstracts aren't normative, as you yourself said.  The "Updates" vs. "Supersedes"
in the header is emphatically normative; it's the way in which we determine
which RFC expresses the current state of a given standard.  Ideally, there
should be "Updated-by" and "Superseded-by" information also, but that requires
prophecy, since it is a rule that not one character of an RFC is changed
after publication.

-- 

Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>
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Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,           || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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Received on Thursday, 25 May 2000 14:41:20 UTC