Re: MUST use Content-Base

>  From: "Roy T. Fielding" <fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu>

(material elided...)

>  When I was rewriting the URI specification and arguing with the MHTML
>  group, I came to the conclusion that Content-Base is not needed provided
>  that Content-Location is implemented as specified.  The reasoning was
>  similar to what Dave Morris mentioned: the only person capable of knowing
>  whether or not the embedded references in a document are relative to
>  some other namespace is the document creator, and they are better-off
>  making that distinction within the document.  Granted, some formats may
>  not have the equivalent of HTML's BASE, but I would argue that those
>  formats are very unlikely to contain relative references.
>  

Do others agree with Roy's analysis?  Is this true in the face of
negotiated resources, where Content-Location might be used to tell you
where the underlying version is found? 

The minimalist in me says if we don't actually need a mechanism, or a different 
mechanism we do need can be used to solve a problem, we shouldn't have it...

And we haven't heard other opinions (e.g. lynx, etc....).  I'd like to hear
from others who've formed opinions.
				- Jim
--
Jim Gettys
Industry Standards and Consortia
Digital Equipment Corporation
Visting Scientist, World Wide Web Consortium, M.I.T.
http://www.w3.org/People/Gettys/
jg@w3.org, jg@pa.dec.com