Re: [whatwg/url] Should file URLs have opaque hostnames? (#599)

I want to be clear I am speaking as neither a URL standard editor nor in my capacity as a Chromium engineer. So I don't have any relevant decision power for this. But maybe I am a URL standard expert...

I personally find the arguments in this thread compelling that the current standard is not good. I know Chromium engineers (/cc @ricea @hayatoito) have already been reluctant to change file: URL handling (e.g. excluding it from Interop 202X efforts) and I suspect this sort of issue would not help them overcome that reluctance.

It's less clear to me what the path forward is. If I understand the issue correctly, we have a few options:

- Treat file: URL hostnames as domains, which will e.g. canonicalize IP addresses (maybe good?), but also disallow spaces (bad).
- Treat file: URL hostnames as opaque, which will not canonicalize IP addresses, will allow spaces... what other consequences, good or bad?
- Treat file: URL hostnames the same as http:/https:, per the comment on https://github.com/whatwg/url/issues/599#issuecomment-846372280. This will canonicalize IP addresses and allow spaces, but also do punycode stuff and case-folding, which I think is bad?

I'm hearing that on balance @karwa believes that treating file: URL hostnames as opaque is the best option, even if that means we don't get canonicalization for IP addresses. Do others agree with that?

@annevk, how do you feel about this issue, especially given WebKit's position as a browser that has successfully shipped the URL Standard's parsing?

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