Registration timing of new URI schemes

While working on a new protocol we (might have) identified a need for a new URI scheme. The problem is that the protocol and use cases are still in their early stage, and will require multiple iterations and experimentation to figure out. At the same time, this effort has failed over the past two years because of attempts to find the 'ideal' solution prior to real work experimentations. We are trying something different now by building a couple of live services offered by some large web players.

The proposed new URI scheme is not yet well defined. We only have small bits of information about how it should work, whether it could/should be resolvable, and if it should be bound to a specific protocol. But we are only going to figure it out by experimentation.

The question is, at what point should we request a provisional registration of the new URI scheme? How much running code and actual deployment is appropriate? We might end up using an existing scheme instead or decide that the new scheme is indeed required.

I am asking this because I have no desire to spend time and energy discussing a new URI scheme (and provisional at that) when we clearly don't have all the answers. But at the same time, I don't want to cause problems by using a new scheme that is not at all registered.

Any guidelines? BCP 35 does not provide guidelines as to *when* should a new URI scheme be registered and how much experimentation is allowed.

EHL

Received on Wednesday, 19 August 2009 18:32:38 UTC