- From: <Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no>
- Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 19:30:12 +0200
- To: Al Gilman <asgilman@access.digex.net>
- cc: connolly@w3.org (Dan Connolly), timbl@w3.org, fielding@ics.uci.edu, masinter@parc.xerox.com, moore@cs.utk.edu, uri@bunyip.com, lassila@w3.org, swick@w3.org, tbray@textuality.com, jeanpa@microsoft.com, cmsmcq@uic.edu, dsr@w3.org, lehors@w3.org, ij@w3.org
Dan,
my opinion is this:
- There is a single class of "things that begin with a short string
and a colon". This class of things can best be called an URI.
- URNs have chosen to be one member group of that class (a decision
I feel good about).
- The rules Larry is editing apply to a lot of groups within that
class; I'm not sure whether it should claim to apply to all.
Claiming that the URL syntax document is the URI syntax document
would certainly seem simpler to me than not doing so, but Larry
did not agree last time I asked him (or so I understood).
AFAIK, the current URN syntax would have no problems conforming
to Larry's rules, if read properly (like "hierarchical stuff
applies only to things that claim to be hierarchical stuff").
But this is my opinion, not IETF consensus.
I believe we have consensus that Larry's rules make sense for
the subset of URIs that can be labelled URLs, and also apply to
some that I have a hard time labelling as such, like cid: and
mid: and news:
The remaining outstanding issue is whether to call "the collection
of URIs for which Larry's rules are valid" by the name URL, URI
or "something else"; my personal vote would be for URI.
If we find we are wrong, we will have to change the rules.
That's not entirely a new thing; we've been wrong before.
But I VERY much want Larry's rules out the door; they're blocking
other things.
Harald A
Received on Sunday, 26 October 1997 02:43:00 UTC