Re: URIs / URLs

On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 07:01:40PM -0500, Aaron Swartz wrote:
> (adding uri@w3.org since they'll probably know better...)
> Mark Nottingham <mnot@akamai.com> wrote:
> >>  (b) support for [URNs] is available in popular browsers and has
> >>  been for several generations
> > 
> > Just curious - how do browsers support URNs? I didn't follow URN
> > development closely, but always thought that it was poorly supported.
> 
> Me too -- I'd also be curious on what it does with the URIs, and how it
> knows what to do (hard coded or does it look it up somehow?).

Only recently have browsers gotten the idea that URI schemes need to be
extensible (I.E. was one of the first to get it right). Currently they
all require a plugin of some type to handle any new schemes (URNs being
just one scheme amongst many). We are releasing a much more robust URN
plugin for I.E. at the end of this month (LGPL license).

URN support in browsers is sketchy at best (mainly because they thought
there was a standard when there wasn't). Netscape prior to 6.0 will
attempt to send all URNs to its configured http proxy. I.E. will just
tell you there's no such URI scheme handler. I'm not sure about Konquerer, 
and others (Opera is based on Netscape). 

My hope is that the URI resolution services that are based on DDDS will
provide a mechanism for gatewaying to new URI schemes even if the current
application doesn't support them natively.

Part of the problem is that so far the only two people developing URN
software has been myself and Justin Couch. Everyone has been sitting on
the sidelines expecting it to get done. We are releasing everything 
as open source so _please_ help us out by grabbing the code and adding
on to it and integrating it into other applications.

-MM

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Mealling	|      Vote Libertarian!       | www.rwhois.net/michael
Sr. Research Engineer   |   www.ga.lp.org/gwinnett     | ICQ#:         14198821
Network Solutions	|          www.lp.org          |  michaelm@netsol.com

Received on Wednesday, 11 April 2001 21:58:58 UTC