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

On 6/25/12 8:28 AM, Harry Halpin wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 10:35 PM, Kingsley Idehen 
> <kidehen@openlinksw.com <mailto:kidehen@openlinksw.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 6/22/12 1:02 PM, Harry Halpin wrote:
>
>         It seems like it would be better to use just mailto: (i.e.,
>         the original WebFinger design was around *email addresses*,
>         not accounts per se) or a http: URI rather than mint a whole
>         new scheme.
>
>     Here's why mailto: won't work. Most user agents will invoke an
>     email client app. Remember, this is about using the URI as a name
>     rather than data locator or access mechanism. That's the reason my
>     acct: is required. Basically, follow-your-nose linked data
>     traversal (with alternative URI resolvers hooked in via
>     host-metadata pattern usage) without unintended consequences i.e.,
>     de-reference the next chunk of data etc...
>
>
> Just to be clear, WebFinger is optimizing around Linked Data 
> "follow-your-nose" pattern? Somehow I find this unlikely at this stage 
> in the game, but you never know.

Its trying to deliver de-referencable names, where the name (denotation) 
mechanism is loosely bound to the resolver mechanism. As you know, an 
http: scheme URI delivers both albeit at the cost of natural intuition 
for humans.
>
> I thought it was just using the email address to track down a domain 
> to some info about capabilities supported by the domain, and thus was 
> never actually dereferencing the email address in a web-browser.

Webfinger enables one make a de-referencable URI for acct: and mailto: 
schemes. The problem for mailto: is that most apps will invoke an email 
client.

Re. Linked Data scenario [1], the only hold up is the Web browser 
variant of user agent. Put differently, on a mobile platform e.g., iOS5 
you can pull off Linked Data follow-your-nose via an iOS5 specific 
Linked Data using an URI scheme that provides a hook for HTTP (or other 
protocols) based data access.

Using http: scheme URIs for Linked Data is cost-effective and 
unobtrusive in a Web browser dominated Web. That doesn't mean its the 
only way :-)


Link:

1. 
http://id.myopenlink.net/describe/?url=acct%3Akidehen@id.myopenlink.net 
-- if you click on the @href that anchors the text in the "About:" 
section you'll see what I mean re. mailto: (i.e., email client would be 
invoked) and browser myopia (not accommodating alternative schemes with 
ease) re. URIs .
>
>
>


-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
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