Re: revised "generic syntax" and "data:" internet drafts

In my personal judgement, there was significant controversy
about adding to a Draft Standard document additional constraints
that were not part of the Proposed Standard and are not
implemented in at least two interoperable implementations.

As I said, I edited the document to contain those changes that
I thought were non-controversial.

>   URL creation mechanisms that generate the URL from a source which
>   is not restricted to a single character->octet encoding are
>   encouraged, but not required, to transition resource names toward
>   using UTF-8 exclusively.
>   URL creation mechanisms that generate the URL from a source which
>   is restricted to a single character->octet encoding should use UTF-8
>   exclusively.  If the source encoding is not UTF-8, then a mapping
>   between the source encoding and UTF-8 should be used.
>
This is an additional requirement that does not correspond,
as far as I can tell, to any kind of "implementation experience".
I know of no URL creation mechanisms that actually do this.

Further, I think that the complaints that there is a certain
amount of ambiguity in practice over exactly how one goes
about doing this are legitimate, and that not only is there
no "running code", there is not "rough consensus".

> I'm surprised, too. I thought we had this worked out, and that
> there was no significant objection or controversy.

I hope that the domain name from which you post ("newbie.net")
isn't some kind of joke. If you insist, I will forward you
the three hundred or so email messages discussing the controversy
around the proposed additions.

Regards,

Larry
--
http://www.parc.xerox.com/masinter

Received on Wednesday, 2 April 1997 17:59:20 UTC