Re: Registration of acct: as a URI scheme has been requested

On 20/06/2012 18:02, Harry Halpin wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 5:49 PM, Henry S. Thompson<ht@inf.ed.ac.uk>  wrote:
>
>> I think the TAG should look at this.  It raises the general question
>> of the architectural appropriateness of URI schemes intended only for
>> use internally within a particular protocol.  As I understand it acct:
>> URIs have no meaning outside messages in the proposed webfinger
>> protocol.
>>
>
> I strongly second this. There is no reason why the "name@domain" can not be
> just handled as a string to be parsed to get the domain and then do a
> lookup in SWD/WebFinger. An additional URI scheme in front does not really
> help the algorithm, as it doesn't need to distinguish between SMTP-enabled
> names@domains (mailto:) and those that don't/may not ("acct:").
>
> Thus, as "acct:" is not attached to any concrete functionality beyond SMTP
> (as it does not normatively state state that such as account should be
> SWD/Webfinger-enabled) AND may even overlap with mailto: names@domains, I
> don't really see the point. . If we go back to the world where every new
> application needs a new URI scheme, something has gone wrong.

I had an extended email discussion with one of the authors, starting out with 
similar concerns.  I was persuaded that there *is* a case for acct as a separate 
scheme, but the WebFinger document does a pretty poor job of articulating that case.

While it's true that WebFinger can be used with *any* URI scheme, there's no 
prior URI scheme that's explicitly intended for use with WebFinger.  acct: aims 
to fill that gap.

Thus, while URIs from different schemes may be dereferenced to obtain web pages, 
mailboxes, etc., the acct: scheme is specifically intended to return user 
account description(s) when dereferenced, and to obtain said description(s) 
using the WebFinger protocol.  No other URI scheme does that.

While I might agree that it's not the most compelling candidate for a new URI 
scheme, I think it does meet the expectations for such a scheme, and there does 
appear to be a significant community who want the capability it provides.

#g
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Received on Thursday, 21 June 2012 09:38:05 UTC