Re: Opacity and mailto: in conflict

Norman Walsh wrote:


> Yes, if that's what we mean, I think we need to be clearer about what
> part of the URI is opaque. What you're saying is that the scheme part
> is NOT opaque, but everything else is. Adopting that position begs a
> couple of questions:

Hmm, I don't think I'm saying that.  I'm that the scheme governs the 
semantics of the rest of the URI.  For example, in mailto: URIs, the bit 
before the @ is opaque, the bit after isn't at all.  HTTP URIs are 
explicitly opaque after the host part.

> - - If the scheme specification explicitly identifies other parts of the URI,
>   does that make those parts transparent as well? For example, suppose that
>   mailto: says that the string that follows it is an email address. Does
>   that mean I can infer that any-damn-fool@nwalsh.com is an email address
>   if I'm presented with this URI: mailto:any-damn-fool@nwalsh.com ?

I think so.

> - - Does the HTTP spec constrain the range of HTTP URIs to things that are
>   documents (or information resources or whatever we're calling bags of bits
>   the end of a wire these days)?

Nope.  All HTTP tells you is that the HTTP protocol may be used to 
obtain representations.  -Tim

Received on Monday, 22 September 2003 17:59:09 UTC