- From: Mike Brown <mike@skew.org>
- Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2007 22:36:25 -0600 (MDT)
- To: uri@w3.org
Previous discussion in this direction led to a hotly debated, expired I-D [1] and a wiki that never saw much participation [2]. IIRC, the I-D merely extracted the 'file' scheme text from RFC 1738 with no changes, and only came into existence because someone didn't like the fact that RFC 1738 is hanging around in a partially-"obsoleted" state; it seemed like it'd be simple enough to just spin off RFCs for the handful of schemes that RFC 1738 is still authoritative for. The draft was contentious for a couple of reasons: Republishing the same text in a separate RFC doesn't feel like a good idea, since there's consensus that the text is not really up to par; and there are different points of view on how descriptive and how prescriptive it should be, if rewritten. I also came up with a lot of hard-to-answer questions re: character encoding and the different levels of abstraction of the resources being identified. When the topic of file URIs came up on IEBlog, I asked Microsoft to participate on the mailing list and wiki. I got a positive response but never followed up on it. I think they may be lurking here. I think the reason interest died off so easily is mainly just because there really isn't an urgent need for a standard to be hammered out. It's only once in a blue moon when someone goes looking for the spec and finds that it's basically a useless blurb in RFC 1738, then goes on to figure out they could do all right without it anyway. I do think it would be nice to get this going again, but only if there's a real need for it. Interest exists, but it's more "it would scratch this bureaucratic itch I have to see precise specs" than "this is holding me up." At any rate, the wiki is still open; feel free to use it. You just need to create an account to make any changes. -Mike [1] Paul Hoffman, Aug. 2004; check this list's archives around then [2] http://offset.skew.org/wiki/URI/File_scheme Lisa Dusseault wrote: > > I don't think we'd have to go too far in documenting the various > inconsistent ways they're already used, so I don't see as much > trouble along those lines. However, we would want to see who would > implement a new, rationalized way of handling them. > > Lisa > > > > On Oct 4, 2007, at 7:02 AM, John Cowan wrote: > > > > > Jeremy Carroll scripsit: > > > >> Any thoughts? > >> Which way should we rationalize behaviour? > >> Should we be working on an I-D for file: ? > > > > The trouble is that a file: ID would have to document and explain > > the various inconsistent ways in which file: is already being used. > > To paraphrase Tennesee Ernie Ford: > > > > When you see file: coming, better step aside, > > A lotta men didn't, and a lotta men died. > > One way for Explorer, another for Mozill', > > If the right hand don't a-getcha then the left one will. > > > > -- > > The Unicode Standard does not encode John Cowan > > idiosyncratic, personal, novel, or private http://www.ccil.org/ > > ~cowan > > use characters, nor does it encode logos > > or graphics. cowan@ccil.org > > > > >
Received on Tuesday, 9 October 2007 04:36:36 UTC