Re: FYI -- draft ietf uri doc

At 06:13 PM 9/8/00 -0400, Leslie Daigle wrote:
>Having sat back and watched for a while... there are at least 3 valid 
>threads that I see:
>
>	. is there a general statement that can be made about
>	  what a URI refers to (like the 'C' pointer confusion) --
>	  is it the box, the contents of the box, the location 
>	  where the box is if it in fact exists?
>
>	. are there useful mechanisms for expressing relationships
>	  between resources, or between identifiers?  (a really
>	  crude attempt at distilling Dan Laliberte's thoughtful 
>	  comments).
>
>	. irrespective of whether the resource is the box, its
>	  contents, or whatever, what are the services that
>	  can make use of the identifier/work on the resource
>	  (beyond the traditional, bald, "get").

This is a very good summary from someone who's just contributed a very good
summary of URI information in general...

>I think these are all valid and important issues in need of discussion.
>But, at least the last 2 are outside the realm of the URI
>specification itself (as it stands today, and many of us believe
>it's best handled outside the identifier spec), and I don't see
>any specific proposals of text that could be added to the URI
>doc I circulated last week.

We're not at the point where 'specific proposals of text' make sense.
Until the URI community recognizes that these points NEED to be addressed,
attempts to address them are just going to bounce off the usual
indifference.  

I can't fix RFC 2396 myself, or even with the help of a core group of
people who agree it needs fixing - reopening that document's answers is
going to require consensus that reopening the questions is worthwhile.

In short, there's little sense in proposing solutions to problems that key
groups of people continue to deny exist at all.  Right now, I'm more
concerned with establishing that the problem exists than in solving it.  

I suspect that the solutions for 1 and 2 wouldn't be that difficult to
create, but I'll admit happily that 3 is a really tough problem - and
perhaps the one most worth solving.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

Received on Friday, 8 September 2000 22:24:29 UTC