Re: New Version Notification - draft-nottingham-http-link-header-08.txt

On Mar 1, 2010, at 6:13 PM, Krzysztof Maczyński wrote:

> Thanks, Mark, for letting us know about the update!
> I support this work of reinstating Link and consider it a good example of how standards development should progress (namely, without ignoring and even tormenting previously existing solutions which could be leveraged).
> At last I'll be able to put links to stylesheets and such staff where it belongs - out of band.
> 
> I'd like to ask you not to deprecate rev. There have been many voices from people using it (including myself) that they appreciate it. The advice newly included in the I-D is misleading:
>> I.e., a 
>>   link from A to B with REL="X" expresses the same relationship as a 
>>   link from B to A with REV="X". "rev" is deprecated by this 
>>   specification because it often confuses authors and readers; in most 
>>   cases using a separate relation type is preferable.
> An antonymous relation type wouldn't quite cut it. See [1].
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Krzysztof Maczyński
> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/2010JanMar/0168.html


But that's the whole point.  Your specific example of

> We are an author of resource A and we want to have a link between resources A and B. (We cannot or don't want to alter B or headers served with it.) To say that B is A's next, use rel and next. To say that B is A's prev, use rel and prev. To say A is B's next, use rev and next. To say A is B's prev, use rev and prev. The latter two (whose characteristic is that B is the starting resource) would be unavailable with the other interpretation of rev.

is inherently false -- one cannot create a link from B to A
on the Web with a Link header field on A.  The Web does not allow
such a feature to exist because it will not scale and is not
supported by the natural authority-relationship of DNS delegation.
A relationship does exist, but that relationship is rooted in A
and the link is from A to B (even if the relationship is *described*
as the inverse of a B to A relation). That is why having a rev
attribute is both redundant and confusing to users.

One can create such links externally or via RDF assertions, but
those are not part of the Web because they exist only within
the closed-world of a given graph's authority.

....Roy

Received on Tuesday, 2 March 2010 06:06:54 UTC