Re: Was mandating WebIDs be IRIs ever discussed (as opposed to them 'just' being URIs)?

On 6/27/22 2:13 PM, Nathan Rixham wrote:
> I guess WebID can be any... Something used in WebID-TLS may need to be 
> http(s).

Hi Nathan,

Not according to the WebID spec which is pegged to HTTP, unfortunately.

As I am sure you know, HTTP specificity arose as an on-boarding tactic 
based on its ubiquity.

Kingsley

>
> On Mon, 27 Jun 2022, 19:11 Eric Jahn, <eric@alexandriaconsulting.com> 
> wrote:
>
>     Why does it have to be an HTTP IRI?  Why not, just an IRI (any
>     protocol)?
>
>     Eric Jahn
>     CTO/Data Architect
>     Alexandria Consulting LLC
>     St. Petersburg, Florida
>     727.537.9474
>     alexandriaconsulting.com <http://alexandriaconsulting.com>
>     WebID <https://alexandriaconsulting.com/files/eric_jahn.rdf#me>
>
>
>     On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 1:22 PM Kingsley Idehen
>     <kidehen@openlinksw.com> wrote:
>
>         On 6/27/22 10:52 AM, Pat McBennett wrote:
>>         Hi,
>>
>>         I just wanted to first ask if anyone here knew of any
>>         existing discussions at all (either here in this mailing list
>>         (as I can't find anything directly relevant when I search
>>         this list for 'IRI'), or anywhere else public) on updating
>>         the current statement in the draft spec [1] (i.e., ""A WebID
>>         is an HTTP URI") to use the term IRI instead of URI?
>>
>>         (Note: I'm very deliberately not even mentioning the term
>>         HTTP in that definition - as that is a completely separate
>>         discussion point (i.e., getting into DIDs and IPFS, etc.))
>>
>>         I don't pretend to know the history behind efforts to
>>         definitively define what an IRI is - but I understand that
>>         IETF 3987 [2] never actually became an official standard (or
>>         did it?).
>>
>>         I understand that the whole area of clearly defining what we
>>         mean by URL, URI, or IRI is probably still a mess. This was
>>         brilliantly articulated back in 2016 in this blog entry [3]
>>         by the maintainer of cURL (Daniel Stenberg): "Not even curl
>>         follows any published spec very closely these days...There’s
>>         no unified URL standard and there’s no work in progress
>>         towards that. I don’t count WHATWG’s spec as a real effort
>>         either".
>>
>>         The reason I ask this question at all is because the RDF 1.1
>>         Concepts and Abstract Syntax makes it explicitly clear that
>>         all identifiers in RDF are IRIs (as defined by IETF 3987, so
>>         whether that is an official standard or not), and it's clear
>>         from section "3.2 IRIs" that the reason for RDF explicitly
>>         stating the use of IETF 3987 IRIs over URIs is:
>>           "IRIs are a generalization of URIs [RFC3986] that permits a
>>         wider range of Unicode characters."
>>
>>         Therefore I interpret that as saying that RDF mandates IRIs
>>         so as to be as inclusive as possible of character sets to
>>         allow people from all around the world to use their native
>>         languages to mint identifiers. (Seems like quite a
>>         laudable intent to me!)
>>
>>         So my question, simply re-stated, is: has anyone discussed
>>         the idea of mandating WebIDs be IRIs too, for the same reason
>>         - i.e., to explicitly be as inclusive as possible of global
>>         character sets?
>>
>>         (Seems to me like WebID has *even more* reason to be
>>         explicitly inclusive of character sets for identifiers than
>>         RDF even, since WebIDs are expressly intended to identify
>>         people (as well as organizations, and IoT devices, and
>>         'agents', etc.))
>>
>>         Cheers,
>>
>>         Pat.
>>
>>         1 -
>>         https://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/webid/spec/identity/#:~:text=a%20given%20Server.-,WebID,A%20WebID%20is%20a%20URI%20with%20an%20HTTP%20or%20HTTPS%20scheme,-which%20denotes%20an
>>         2 - https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3987.txt
>>         3 - https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2016/05/11/my-url-isnt-your-url/
>>
>>         *Pat McBennett*, Technical Architect
>>
>>         Contact  | patm@inrupt.com
>>
>>         Connect | WebID <http://pmcb55.inrupt.net/profile/card#me>,
>>         GitHub <https://github.com/pmcb55>
>>
>>         Explore  | www.inrupt.com <http://www.inrupt.com/>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>         Hi Pat,
>
>         Long story short, your point is valid.
>
>         Challenge:
>
>         Evolving the WebID spec is fundamentally difficult, IMHO.
>
>         A WebID should be an HTTP IRI that denotes an Agent.
>
>         How that becomes part of the spec is a completely different
>         matter :(
>
>         -- 
>         Regards,
>
>         Kingsley Idehen 
>         Founder & CEO
>         OpenLink Software
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-- 
Regards,

Kingsley Idehen 
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
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Received on Monday, 27 June 2022 18:39:24 UTC