RE: Proposed disposition of Stuart Williams' comments on Metadata in URI 31

Stuart Williams writes:

> Ok... I understand the point, but I still think
> that citing http as such a scheme (as you do in
> your response above - not the document) sort of
> over states things. In asking for examples, I was
> looking for examples where explicit provision was
> made for carrying additional information, with the
> explicit intent that the information be
> recoverable my inspection of the URI.

I understood that to be your intent.

> Maybe I read to much into the "CAN", but that is
> what I read it as suggesting.
> 
> I guess that we can agree to differ on this one.

With some reluctance, I think so.  More specifically, I'm at the point 
where I'd prefer to rely on other TAG members to give guidance on which of 
these things are worth another round.  My vote would be to leave this one 
as is, with apologies for having taken advantage of your flexibility in 
agreeing to something that you don't completely like.

Stuart suggests:

> "Martin's browser is in error because it treats a
> portion of the URI as metadata in a way that is
> not covered by normative specifications and has
> not been documented by the assignment authority."

I can live with that, but would prefer the following change:

<originalFromSept16Draft>
In this example, there is no normative specification that provides for 
determination of a media-type from URI suffixes, and the assignment 
authority has provided no documentation to support an inference of 
media-type from the URI. Martin's browser is in error, because it relies 
on URI metadata that is not covered by normative specifications and has 
not been documented by the assignment authority. 
</originalFromSept16Draft>

<proposed>
Martin's browser is in error, because its inference that the URI suffix 
provides file type metadata is not provided for by normative Web 
specifications or (we may assume) in documentation from the assignment 
authority.
</proposed>

I'd like to think that this retains the essence of your improvement, but I 
like the way it reads a bit better.  It eliminates the whole first 
sentence of the paragraph, and I think it also is a bit tighter than the 
sentence you offered (though I can live with that too). 

I'm taking the liberty of including my proposed revision in the draft 
that's about to ship, but feel free to push back if you feel yours is 
better.  We'll also have to see whether other TAG members concur with the 
change.  I hope this addresses what I take to be your main concern, which 
is the suggestion that there might have been some metadata there to 
ignore.

--------------------------------------
Noah Mendelsohn 
IBM Corporation
One Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
1-617-693-4036
--------------------------------------

Received on Saturday, 30 September 2006 00:05:39 UTC