Re: URL Expansion proposal

mwm@contessa.phone.net (Mike Meyer) writes:

>You're not trying to provide aliases. You're trying to wire down the
>behavior of user-agents when presented with an ill-formed URL. This is
>NOT the same thing. Users get to create aliases that are shortcuts for
>their favorite command. What you've proposed is closer to a bad
>implementation of DWIM.

Actually, what Israel del Rio is proposing, albeit in a rather glib and
offhand fashion, is a URN.  URLs are the only subclass of Uniform
Resource Identifier that have been specified so far, however the
"Uniform Resouce Name" subclass has been defined at least as a concept.
RFCs 1630 and 1738 make (sometimes oblique) reference to URNs, and to
URLs as just one form of URI.  In fact, RFC 1738 recommends specifying
URLs in text as "URL:<url contents>" (e.g. "URL:HTTP://bubba.com") to
differentiate URLs from other forms of URIs.

One might imagine assigning Uniform Resource Names in the USA to the
legal owners of the associated registered trademarks.  Thus the URI
"URN: IBM" would have a well known definition of "URL:http://www.IBM.Com".
That doesn't extend well to an international scope, but I think you get
the idea.  In any case, URNs are an issue of discussion within the IETF's
URI group, and not much more than vaporware right now.

Ross Patterson
Sterling Software, Inc.
VM Software Division

Received on Monday, 15 January 1996 18:07:33 UTC