- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 14:58:21 PDT
- To: Josh Cohen <josh@netscape.com>
- Cc: http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com
I think that the "ftp" URL scheme description in RFC 1738 doesn't
match reality. We're in the process of revising 1738 & 1808 to
create a new generic syntax document.
draft-fielding-url-syntax-05.txt
is about to go to last call.
As far as http-wg is concerned, definition of the http URL
scheme in the HTTP/1.1 document just needs to be checked against
the generic syntax.
For ftp, we need someone to draft a revision of the "ftp" URL
scheme, so it can proceed along standards track. In particular,
the proposal to use ";type=d" for directories has just never
been implemented and should be removed.
I believe that redirection on things that turn out to be
directories is inevitable. That is, if "/dir1/dir2/name" is
actually a directory, the official URL should be
"ftp://host/dir1/dir2/name/" but that if an HTTP
proxy chooses to honor "ftp://host/dir1/dir2/name",
it might as well honor it by generating a redirect as
by generating content with different URLs. But in some
ways, it's completely outside the standard: both ways work.
Larry
Received on Tuesday, 6 May 1997 15:14:17 UTC