RE: draft-kindberg-tag-uri

> What is it I'm missing in thinking that (URI) tags containing 
> pct-encoded characters are:
> (a) self-defeating -- tags are supposed to be tractable for humans
> (b) redundant -- it's never necessary to turn a tag containing, say, 
> Chinese characters into URI form; we need be sure only that it's in 
> canonical form and thus comparable with other tags.

This makes it look like 'tag' doesn't have general applicability
as a URI, as it can not generally be used in contexts that accept
URIs but do not accept IRIs.

Perhaps, in the transition from URIs to IRIs, it would
make sense to allow new URI schemes to be registered that have
this property, but it seems unnecessarily limiting.

It might be useful, as an informational adjunct to the IRI
draft, to do a survey of URI contexts and the state of
application for use of IRIs in those contexts, e.g., within
HTML, inside email headers, in SIP, etc.

For example, RFC 3106, ECML, has a "URI indicating version
of this set of fields."  Can this actually be an IRI? I don't
think RFC 3106 allows that. Can you use a Chinese 'tag' here?
Not unless you allow pct-encoded characters.

I just picked ECML at random; I think there are lots of other
protocols that use 'URI' and would need their definition
to be upgraded to allow 'IRI'.

Larry
-- 
http://larry.masinter.net

Received on Saturday, 4 September 2004 17:53:41 UTC