- From: Michael Mealling <michael@bailey.dscga.com>
- Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 21:55:20 -0400
- To: Aaron Swartz <aswartz@swartzfam.com>
- Cc: Mark Nottingham <mnot@akamai.com>, RDF Interest <www-rdf-interest@w3.org>, uri@w3.org
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