RE: comments on draft-eastlake-cturi-01.txt

> OK, so... let's fix that; let's set up
> 	http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/plain
> and so on, similar to the existing materials, and let's get
> IANA to guarantee not to change it without due process.

IANA may not be willing either to set up such a web site or to
make a guarantee that they would maintain a "web site" for
an indefinite period of time.

In any case, the only mechanism for the IETF to give "instructions"
to IANA to ask them to do such a thing is for someone to write
an Internet Draft describing what it is they're supposed to do,
and then to have that Internet Draft accepted for publication as
a BCP.

In either case, you need to describe what it is that you want
done. Certainly having IANA maintain an orderly web site is
a good idea, but, since the data at the web site isn't necessary,
it doesn't seem like it should be a requirement that there be a
"web site" merely to have a mapping from IANA-registered tokens
into URI syntax.

> Let's not pretend that a different URI scheme
> will somehow magically provide more stability
> than http/dns; stability depends on
> social practices, not just technology.

I don't think there is any "magic", just simple engineering:
systems with fewer points of failure or more stable than those
with more points of failure.

"IANA loses their domain name"
"domain name system changes dramatically"
"http goes out of common use"
"no one is willing to maintain a gopher server for IANA"
  (ooops, I meant 'http', I know those old gopher URLs aren't
   good any more, but those http URLs will be good for 20 years,
   by golly).

Those are all points of failure. Why introduce them? They're
unnecessary bits of social practice.

Larry

Received on Thursday, 18 January 2001 22:38:03 UTC