out of office Jan 16-18

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 17:02:58 +1000 (EST)
From: Mike Whalen <Mike.Whalen@jcu.edu.au>
To: QUESTnet 96 Prelim Mailist <aarnet-contacts@aarnet.edu.au>,
        aiwg-res-des@aarnet.edu.au, anews-l@scu.edu.au,
        ascilite@cutl.city.unisa.edu.au, ateach-l@scu.edu.au,
        clarcomm@durras.anu.edu.au, CWIS-L@WUVMD.WUSTL.EDU,
        gov-net@nic.state.mn.us, hyperbole@cs.brown.edu,
        link@charlotte.anu.edu.au, resodlaa@usq.edu.au,
        ti-ops-contacts@telstra.net, Web4Lib@LIBRARY.BERKELEY.EDU,
        www-announce@www.cern.ch, www-its@its.csiro.au, www-l@scu.edu.au,
        www-talk@www0.cern.ch, WWW-VM@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: QUESTnet '96
Message-Id: <Pine.OSF.3.91.960115165741.9458A-100000@lionfish.jcu.edu.au>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Length: 1578

QUESTnet '96 -- the Conference for Network Managers and Practitioners

        PRELIMINARY NOTICE

This serves to advise that the 1996 QUESTnet Conference and Workshop
will be held at James Cook University in Townsville, North Queensland,
Australia, from Wednesday, 3 July to Friday, 5 July 1996.

At this stage, we envisage the program commencing on Wednesday morning
and concluding after lunch on Friday to allow travellers to return home
on that day.  There will also be an informal function on the Tuesday
evening for those arriving the day before the Conference starts.

On-campus lodgings in student accommodation have been arranged.  For
the less adventurous, a selection of hotels and motels is within easy
driving distance.

        TOWNSVILLE -- THE CAPITAL OF NORTH QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA

The weather in July is usually fabulous -- av. 25 deg max, 14 min with
a very low probability of rain.  WHY NOT PLAN TO TACK ON A HOLIDAY TO
THE CONFERENCE?  There is much to see and do in and around Townsville.

More details will follow later.

PLEASE MARK IT IN YOUR DIARY NOW!!!  3-5 JULY 1996!!!  MAY NEED TO
TRAVEL TO TOWNSVILLE 2 JULY!!!

=======================================================================
E-mail:  Mike.Whalen@jcu.edu.au      Telephone National:  (077) 81-4195
Assistant Director, User Services         International: +61 77 81 4195
James Cook University                FAX       National:  (077) 81-5230
Townsville   Qld   4811                   International: +61 77 81 5230
Australia                                     Time Zone:        Z + 10h

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 00:14:13 -0700
From: idelrio@abstraction.com (Israel del Rio)
To: Jonathon Tidswell <t-jont@microsoft.com>
Cc: www-talk@w3.org
Subject: RE: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <199601150714.AAA26654@teal.csn.net>
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
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Jonathon,

I agree that applying wisdom-after-the-fact a more friendly way for URL
schemes could have been designed. Still URLs have been a great solution to the 
addressing problems due to the heterogeneity of Net services. Obviously nobody 
really predicted that the Internet would explode out of the scope of academia 
and go into what quickly is turning into a global electronic consumer 
marketplace (at least that's what I hope). I realize that applying alternative
schemes or eventually applying the more flexible X.500 standards could
take care of the problem. I would rather see a more comprehensive
review of the entire addressing issue comparing DNS vs X.500 than to
force the use of another name resolution server to map aliases to URL.

My suggestion was simply intended as an easy to develop stop-gap for what
I consider will be the most used aspect to the net from a mass public
perspective. Once again, I am not recommending an alternative addressing
scheme but an automated aliasing scheme which is deliverately limited in
scope (okay, actually I am proposing an intelligent wildcard expansion approach,
but the purpose is the same). An alias does not replace an address; it simply 
augments it. The aliases used in UNIX, for example, do not change the Unix file 
system. If eventually the standard way to access the Internet will be via the 
Web (an statistics already point to that trend), we do not need to immediately
use simplified URL expansion for people accessing, say FTP, Gopher, or
News directly. The question I was trying to address was:
How can we make it easier for *most* people and companies to identify
themselves in the net without using infrastructure-dependent addressing schemes 
and with a minimum effort and cost?

regards,

Israel

On Sun, 14 Jan 1996, Jonathon Tidswell <t-jont@microsoft.com> wrote:
>
>Israel,
>You are correct URLs are ugly and not particularly novice friendly(1).
>Which leads quite quickly to the conclusion that an improvement is needed.
>I dont think anybody would disagree so far.
>
>However your suggestion is applicable to a very narrow part of the web 
>(indeed HTTP is only part of the 'Web'), it appears to be the common 
>response that your goals are good but that implementing two standards (yours 
>and a more widely applicable one at a later date) for dealing with the 
>naming problems is worse than dealing with the (admittedly poor) current URL 
>scheme until a broadly applicable solution can be found.
>
>I think the best (short term) solution mentioned so far has been to provide 
>a UI feature which is basically a link to a search engine/index.
>You may wish to experiment with alternative implementations(2) and can then 
>enlighten everybody with the results of your work, so that everybody will 
>use a *standard* method to avoid confusing novices.
>
>- JonT
>
>(1) It is acutally worse than that, they can be counter intuitive for some 
>things.
>(2) Obvious possibilities include:
>   -   a separate text entry box with a second button
>   -   a more clever parser that send the text to the search engine if it is 
>clearly not a
>       misformed URL and cant be made to look like a URL by simple tricks
>
>Disclaimer: I think my thoughts are my own, and I believe my writings are 
>too.
>I neither can nor do speak for Microsoft. 
>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* Israel del Rio    Abstraction Software       +303-791-6600 *
*                    Makers of PROPHESY                      *
*   The Windows Based Network & Workflow Simulation System   *
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 02:42:46 -0500
From: Matthew James Marnell <marnellm@portia.portia.com>
To: idelrio@abstraction.com (Israel del Rio)
Cc: "Adam M. Donahue" <donahue@acf2.nyu.edu>, www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal 
Message-Id: <199601150742.CAA20454@portia.portia.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
content-length: 2385

:
:>Um, hello...  that's what a domain name is to begin with.  What lies 
:>behind nyu.edu, for instance, is the IP address 128.122.128.*  That's the 
:>"alpha phrase" (as you put it) for this IP address.  But it's better than 
:>that, it's also an online phone book.  I'm beginning to wonder if you're 
:>not technically inept, and thus frustrated because it took _you_ so long 
:>to grasp the idea.  Man, talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.
:>
:Adam, if thinking me extremely inept helps you heighten your dubious self-worth, 
:be my guest. Understanding the URL concept is not that difficult; but 
:understanding that computers ougth to adapt to actual people and not to 
:technical snobs is something you have yet to learn.  

Um, hello, can we kindly move this part of the discussion elsewhere.

First, wouldn't the URL belong on another forum?

Second, if user agent concerns and usability concerns are at the
fore as far as you're concerned, write a browser that implements it,
and if it works, which, from comments, many doubt it will, all the
other browser makers will be tripping over themselves to implement
it.

As far as Unix and DNS goes, there are at least a hundred good
news groups and mailing lists to go to to try to get one or the
other changed, inquiries on the workings thereof, etc.

Can we put this stupid thread to bed already.  It really could care
less about either of your skill levels as far as (DNS|URL|URI|URN|
User Interface|Usability) goes.

The UR* expansion proposal is an agent/client concern.  It is not
an overall WWW concern.  It's like Unix shells, most do wildcard
expansion, some do <Tab> completions.  Neither is better or worse,
but it's at the shell level, not the Unix level.

And, as far as usabily goes, how many people bother to type in
URL's?  Seriously folks, is this a programmer trying to think
like a user, which has been shown not to work 1000X over.  Most
users I know use some starting point, like yahoo, or something their
service provider sets up and clicks away from there, rarely ever
typing in URL's themselves.  If they need to remember it, click
on bookmark and they're off to somewhere else.  Me, I type in URLs
all the time, but it's part of the jab description.  I type in fewer
URL's now than I did even 3 months ago.

How big a problem is this really?  and is it worth stooping to this
level over?

Matt

Date: Sun, 14 Jan 1996 18:53:25 -0800
From: "Dale Dougherty" <dale@ora.com>
To: idelrio@abstraction.com (Israel del Rio), www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <9601150000.ZM-79881@emerald>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
content-length: 1882

Israel raises a useful problem to solve.  URLs were
never intended to be what they've become: an arcane
way for a user to identify a site on the Web. 
Unfortunately, we've never been able to standardize
URNs, which would give us a more useful naming system. 
Arguing that the current URL system is sufficient
is like praising the DOS command line, and stating
that most people should simply learn to use command
line syntax.  The reason we have windowing systems
is to make computers easier to use, and more widely
used.  The same thinking should lead us to a superior
way of locating specific sites on the Web.  

Metacharacter name expansion isn't the answer.
It is probably closer to what Larry suggested, in
that you want to search a name space.  I would rather
see a client return a list of possible sites that
might match "rice", giving me the choice between
"rice.com" and "rice.edu".   There simply ought
to be some kind of company name/site name registry,
which could be used for such a search.  A registry could
be done without having to address the more sophisticated
problems that URNs ended up trying to solve. 
You could advertise your Web keyword rather than a URL.  

I have trouble locating the ESPN site because I
can't remember that it's URL is espn.Sportzone.com
or some such thing.  I ought to be able to type
in ESPN and get something.

For those of you who say URLs are sufficient, please
remember that people like you lucky enough to be
on the Internet make up only between 4 and 10 per
cent of the population.  Hard to believe, but most
people just watch TV and they have easy ways to
know what's on when and where.

Dale



-- 
Dale Dougherty    (dale@ora.com)
President, Songline Studios
Publishers of Web Review (http://gnn.com/wr)
101 Morris Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472    707-829-0515  
Songline Studios is an Affiliate of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 09:00:11 GMT
From: Chris Ridd <chris@imc.exec.nhs.uk>
To: idelrio@abstraction.com, tony@info.anu.edu.au
Cc: www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <9601150900.AA13384@mail.imc.exec.nhs.uk>
content-length: 298

>This might be fine for the *.com domain but what about the *.com.au and the
>other 100+ countries on the web besides the USA?? Also I don't think "com"
>is used by all countries to indicate their commercial sector.

Indeed not - the UK uses ".co.uk" to indicate commercial organisations.

--Chris

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 09:17:02 GMT
From: pwain@acorn.co.uk (Paul "S." Wain)
To: www-talk@w3.org
Subject: RE: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <30FA1B8E@pwain@acorn.co.uk>
content-length: 1126

Ryan Grant wrote:
> 
> Anyone with Spry's Mosaic 95 can type "ibm" and see a web page.
> 
> Note that for any given "foo", "foo" is not and never ever will be a valid
> url, so this implementation trick does not conflict with the standards (nor
> should it be one).

If we are talking of tricks to make life simple, why not consider one
that in at least one WWW browser I know of. If you enter just the
host name as the URL (i.e. www.acorn.co.uk) you get pushed to the
URL staring "http://" hostname "/" (i.e http://www.acorn.co.uk/ and it does
add the trailing slash :).

This shouldnt bastardise things too much, and is purely a UI issue at this
point then? It doesnt need a new protocol and works in 'most' cases.

One thing that didnt get picked up by the previous debate was that it does
not allow for URLs of the form:

	http://www.brunel.ac.uk:8080/

i.e. including the port number? What does that become? IBMs server in 
Australia running on port 9999 becomes *IBM*au:8080? Why not just stick
with the URLs in the 1st place, they at least have some meaning after
all!

P.
(Not writing for Acorn, not working for ART).

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 10:31:31 +0000 (GMT)
From: Stephen Turner <S.R.E.Turner@statslab.cam.ac.uk>
To: idelrio@abstraction.com (Israel del Rio)
Cc: donahue@acf2.nyu.edu, www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <m0tbmCK-000TJKC@cougar.statslab.cam.ac.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Length:        523

Israel del Rio wrote:
-> 
-> Is there anything confusing in allowing companies to form phone numbers that
-> can be advertised as alpha phrases? (1800-CALLHERE).
-> 

Well actually, yes there is. It stops people in countries that don't have
letters on their 'phones from 'phoning them. I often see American adverts
that I can't follow up.


-- 
Stephen R. E. Turner
  Stochastic Networks Group, Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge
  e-mail: sret1@cam.ac.uk  WWW: http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~sret1/home.html

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 02:47:49 -0800
From: rgrant@spry.com (Ryan Grant)
To: pwain@acorn.co.uk (Paul "S." Wain), www-talk@w3.org
Subject: RE: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <199601151047.CAA27288@homer.spry.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
content-length: 389

At 09:17 AM 1/15/96 GMT, Paul "S." Wain wrote:
>If we are talking of tricks to make life simple, why not consider one
>that in at least one WWW browser I know of. If you enter just the
>host name as the URL (i.e. www.acorn.co.uk) you get pushed to the
>URL staring "http://" hostname "/" (i.e http://www.acorn.co.uk/ and it does
>add the trailing slash :).

Yeah, we do that too.


- Ryan

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 11:47:23 +0100
From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra@troll.no>
To: idelrio@abstraction.com (Israel del Rio)
Cc: donahue@acf2.nyu.edu, www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <29559.9489.821702843@pentagram.troll.no>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
content-length: 1367

idelrio@abstraction.com (Israel del Rio)
> Adam, if thinking me extremely inept helps you heighten your dubious
> self-worth, be my guest. Understanding the URL concept is not that
> difficult; but understanding that computers ougth to adapt to actual
> people and not to technical snobs is something you have yet to
> learn.

I quite agree that computers need to adapt to people rather than the
opposite.  Anyone who wishes to argue against that should read Donald
Norman's excellent book The Psychology of Everyday Things.

But your proposal doesn't do that, it simplifies an arbitrary part of
most people's use of the web, which is a different thing entirely.
Your proposal only simplifies life for those users who haven't yet
learnt the old format, and who will never need or want to use an URL
outside the .com domain or which doesn't use HTTP.  For the rest, your
proposal adds a new and irregular URL format to learn.

You say in an earlier messages that "99% of the Internet users are not
simply interested in the nuisances of FTP, NEWS, Gopher, etc."  I
assume you mean nuances, not nuisances, but anyway, do you mean that
99% of users only ever use URLs in the .com domain?  Do you mean that
HTTPng will never be relevant to people who only use .com servers?

If you answer no to either question, I don't see how you can still
defend that proposal.

--Arnt

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 09:40:29 -0600 (CST)
From: chuckt@nkn.net (Chuck Thompson)
To: www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <199601151540.JAA01075@dfw.nkn.net>
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
content-length: 549

Israel...

I'm just a lurker on this list.  I read it regularly to keep up and to learn, most of it goes over my 
head.

Wouldn't it be easier for the browser manufacturers to write something which inserts "http://www." when 
the cursor is placed on the address line?  If they did that, it would help to overcome one of the 
arcane aspects of web surfing for newbies and save keystrokes for the knowbies.  Obviously, if any 
portion of the inserted address fragment were unwanted, the user could just highlight it and overwrite 
it.

Chuck Thompson

Date:     Mon, 15 Jan 1996 11:02 -0500
From: DANTONIO@process.com (Momentary Language, Sexual Situations)
To: t-jont@microsoft.com
Cc: www-talk@w3.org
Subject:  RE: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <0099C6C16279B6B4.19D3@PROCESS.COM>
content-length: 336

> You are correct URLs are ugly and not particularly novice friendly(1).
> Which leads quite quickly to the conclusion that an improvement is needed.
> I dont think anybody would disagree so far.

I certainly disagree and every response I've seen has said that URLs are
quite easily explained and understood. If it ain't broke...

DDA

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 17:05:54 -0500
From: "Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@beach.w3.org>
To: "Dale Dougherty" <dale@ora.com>
Cc: idelrio@abstraction.com (Israel del Rio), www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal 
Message-Id: <m0tbx2I-0002RmC@beach.w3.org>
content-length: 2160

In message <9601150000.ZM-79881@emerald>, "Dale Dougherty" writes:
>Israel raises a useful problem to solve.  URLs were
>never intended to be what they've become: an arcane
>way for a user to identify a site on the Web.

To some extent, I agree. They were originally called "document
addresses." You certainly don't have to know ESPN's postal address to
find them on the television.

In stead, you look at the little key on your cable box. It's
a little directory service.

We need good directory services. Yahoo is pretty good, but it's kinda
centralized (administratively, at least.) The www.company.com is an
attempt to use DNS (a name service) as a directory service.

While name services and directory services have quite a bit in common,
the engineering trade-offs used to optimize them are very
different. The assumptions are different too: in a name service,
you're expected to know the name, and each entry in the service is
expected to have a distinct name. In a directory service, you're
expected to know a few things, but not necessarily _the_ distinguished
name for an item.

My notes on the subject are at:

   MetaData: Web Catalogs and Knowledge Bases
   http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Addressing/citations.html


>Unfortunately, we've never been able to standardize
>URNs, which would give us a more useful naming system.

Hmm... I disagree with that characterization of the situation.
It wasn't a failure to standardize on a viable technology,
but rather a failure to invent (or recognize) a viable technology.
See:

   Link Reliability: URNs are Not the Answer
   http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Propagation/reliable-links.html

excerpt:

   URNs will play an important role in publishing on the web (along with
   copyright enforcement mechanisms, payment mechanisms, etc.) but I
   doubt they will increase reliability (or quality of service) for the
   vast majority of web links, because URNs will impose administrative
   overhead (e.g. registration, digital signatures), or at least
   work-flow restrictions (e.g. once you've made a document available
   under a URN, you can never change it). (see [STANF] for an excellent
   discussion)


Dan

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 96 16:25:29 EST
From: "Ross Patterson" <Ross_Patterson@sterling.com>
To: www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <199601152228.RAA20468@mail.Reston.VMD.Sterling.COM>
content-length: 1356

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

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 15:33:18 PST
From: Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>
To: "Ross Patterson" <Ross_Patterson@sterling.com>, www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <199601152333.PAA06720@rock.west.ora.com>
content-length: 630

>In any case, URNs are an issue of discussion within the IETF's
URI group, and not much more than vaporware right now.

There isn't any URI group anymore; it got nuked.  Separate URN and
URC groups may be formed in the future.  URNs are actually happening,
but within local systems that implementors can fit out with experimental
resolution services.  

Regards,

-- 
Terry Allen  (terry@songline.com), Online Books Editor, Songline Studios
               affiliated with O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.   
A Davenport Group sponsor.  See http://www.ora.com/davenport/README.html
                  Lucky numbers:  #  =  +  @  Z  $  !

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 16:50:54 PST
From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
To: Ross_Patterson@sterling.com
Cc: www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <96Jan15.165100pst.2733@golden.parc.xerox.com>
content-length: 1087

While URN discussions are ongoing, none of the proposals for URNs
attempt to deal with the issue of 'short easy names that advertisers
can put on billboards', and none of those currently working on URNs
believe they are trying to solve that problem.

I think there's clearly a need for a simple directory service like
this, that most of the data's already there in Yahoo and Excite to do
a reasonable job of it, and that what it would take is a consortium of
browser developers to agree to a standard (set of) (open) registration
service(s) for their 'open location' menu.

It has to be standard, though, or else advertisers won't use the short
handle to advertise. It has to designate web coolness, too. I think
maybe a new URL scheme, e.g.:

#       about:<name>
# 'about:X' looks up X in the browser vendor's chosen directory
# service. Nice browsers might allow your directory service to be
# reconfigured, or for you to have a list. Some browsers might have some
# directory items wired in.

Then people could just put 'about:ibm' on their billboard and expect
you to find them.

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 20:44:21 -0700
From: idelrio@abstraction.com (Israel del Rio)
To: rgrant@spry.com (Ryan Grant)
Cc: www-talk@w3.org
Subject: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <199601160344.UAA01111@teal.csn.net>
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
content-length: 1156

>>Anyone with Spry's Mosaic 95 can type "ibm" and see a web page.

Ryan, I tried it and it sure looks as if you went a step ahead of
my proposal. Spry is expanding the name to www.name.com. Now, if Netscape and 
Microsoft agree to a convention like that I'd be really happy.

>>Note that for any given "foo", "foo" is not and never ever will be a valid
>>url, so this implementation trick does not conflict with the standards (nor
>> should it be one).

Exactly.

>>Note also that it is not possible to indicate that your company is on the
>>Web (and therefore somewhat cool) simply by showing your name.  URLs do have
>>style.

Well my * idea at least keeps the implied meaning that the enclosed name is a
Web page address!

 
Best regards,

	snip://wwn.del_rio.israel.mr/

(snip = silly name information protocol; wwn = world wide names)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* sipc://wwn.del_rio.israel.mr/    Abstraction Software      *
*                    Makers of PROPHESY                      *
*   The Windows Based Network & Workflow Simulation System   *
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 20:14:47 -0800 (PST)
From: Alexei Kosut <akosut@nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us>
To: Israel del Rio <idelrio@abstraction.com>
Cc: Ryan Grant <rgrant@spry.com>, www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <Pine.HPP.3.91.960115201327.1615A-100000@ace.nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
content-length: 785

On Mon, 15 Jan 1996, Israel del Rio wrote:

> Ryan, I tried it and it sure looks as if you went a step ahead of
> my proposal. Spry is expanding the name to www.name.com. Now, if Netscape and 
> Microsoft agree to a convention like that I'd be really happy.

The Netscape 2.0 betas do do this. Any given domain "foo", if "foo" cannot
be found, will expand to "www.foo.com". And, as has been in place since
Netscape 1.0, any name "bar" will expand to "http://bar/". At least,
that's been my observation. 

--/ Alexei Kosut <akosut@nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us> /--------/ Lefler on IRC
----------------------------/ <http://www.nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us/~akosut/>
The viewpoints expressed above are entirely false, and in no way
represent Alexei Kosut nor any other person or entity. /--------------

Date: Mon, 15 Jan 1996 23:53:59 -0500 (EST)
From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <dee@cybercash.com>
To: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Cc: www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960115234232.23155B-100000@cybercash.com>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
content-length: 2644

On Mon, 15 Jan 1996, Larry Masinter wrote:

> While URN discussions are ongoing, none of the proposals for URNs
> attempt to deal with the issue of 'short easy names that advertisers
> can put on billboards', and none of those currently working on URNs
> believe they are trying to solve that problem.
> 
> I think there's clearly a need for a simple directory service like
> this, that most of the data's already there in Yahoo and Excite to do
> a reasonable job of it, and that what it would take is a consortium of
> browser developers to agree to a standard (set of) (open) registration
> service(s) for their 'open location' menu.

I think the web indexers, while very useful, tend to have many pages under
a short name already and will have even more as time goes on.

> It has to be standard, though, or else advertisers won't use the short
> handle to advertise. It has to designate web coolness, too. I think
> maybe a new URL scheme, e.g.:
> 
> #       about:<name>
> # 'about:X' looks up X in the browser vendor's chosen directory
> # service. Nice browsers might allow your directory service to be
> # reconfigured, or for you to have a list. Some browsers might have some
> # directory items wired in.

I think that's a pretty good idea but I'd make a few changes.  I don't
think "about:" has enough mystique about it.  I suggest "web:".  I
think that some hierarchy is needed.  So I think web:moterola.pager
or the like should be allowed.  Finally, if this is going to be used
as the result of TV advertisement, it is essential that all people get
the same thing so the master copy of the "directory" must be the same.

> Then people could just put 'about:ibm' on their billboard and expect
> you to find them.

So how would I implement this so as to get it off the ground instantly?
Simple, have "web:" just replace itself with http:, reverse the labels
if there are more than one, prefix www. and suffix .com.  If someone
wants their "true" name to be, say, foo.mn, they could register
foo.com just to put in a "*.foo.com CNAME foo.mn" entry (might require
some relaxation of the .com regsitration rules).  Or a new top level
domain could be used, or even a new class in DNS.

Worried about being able to do searches for a close but not exact
match?  Add that to DNS rather than developing a whole new directory.

Anyway, that's my opinion.

Donald
=====================================================================
Donald E. Eastlake 3rd     +1 508-287-4877(tel)     dee@cybercash.com
   318 Acton Street        +1 508-371-7148(fax)     dee@world.std.com
Carlisle, MA 01741 USA     +1 703-620-4200(main office, Reston, VA)

Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 09:10:51 -0500
From: Gary.Adams@east.sun.com (Gary Adams - Sun Microsystems Labs BOS)
To: Ross_Patterson@sterling.com, masinter@parc.xerox.com
Cc: www-talk@w3.org
Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
Message-Id: <9601161410.AA03485@zeppo.East.Sun.COM>
content-length: 314

> Subject: Re: URL Expansion proposal
> From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
> 
> Then people could just put 'about:ibm' on their billboard and expect
> you to find them.
> 

This is a very interesting proposal for a commercial service! What would 
an advertiser be willing to pay for such a billboard?