RE: fb: URIs?

This goes beyond Facebook and the iPhone. Pretty much every operating system at this point uses URI schemes as handles/hooks for invoking applications for handling them. This was done in Windows for a decade so Apple didn't invent anything new.

Minting new URI schemes is very difficult. The process provides an easy excuse to simply ignore it. I am not suggesting that people should, but they clearly are (take a look at the list of unregistered schemes - it's LONG). There was long debate on minting an application URI scheme just for this (such as app:fb:something), but I don't think it went far.

EHL

> -----Original Message-----
> From: uri-request@w3.org [mailto:uri-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Julian
> Reschke
> Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2010 1:39 AM
> To: Graham Klyne
> Cc: David Recordon; Dan Brickley; uri@w3.org
> Subject: Re: fb: URIs?
> 
> On 17.02.2010 00:24, Graham Klyne wrote:
> >  >>> Long story short, we (certainly I, anyway) have no intentions to
> > make "fb" a >>> real URL scheme. It just arose out of convenience.
> >
> > Hmmm... so what happens to Facebook's iPhone app when someone
> validly
> > registers and deploys (widely) a URI scheme called 'fb:'?
> >
> > I would hazard a suggestion that at least a provisional registration
> > might be in order (noting its limited use) to help avoid such a thing
> > from happening without anyone noticing.
> > ...
> 
> The problem is much bigger, as far as I recall, minting new URI schemes for
> invoking iphone applications is even recommended by the SDK, so there are
> probably many more.
> 
> See discussion around
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2008Oct/0002.html>.
> 
> Best regards, Julian

Received on Wednesday, 17 February 2010 17:08:01 UTC