Re: [apps-discuss] RFC 5785: Registration of .well-known services under HTTP to First Come

SRV isn't used by HTTP, so I'm not seeing a strong motivation for aligning the policies. Given that .well-known is a mechanism for allocating a URL on *every* Web server on the planet, and that space is ceded to standard uses by server authorities (the actual owners of that name space), having a higher bar to entry than FCFS seems like a good idea. 

> On 14 Jan 2016, at 9:31 am, Phillip Hallam-Baker <phill@hallambaker.com> wrote:
> 
> Last week I released my set of build tools for specifications and
> services on sourceforge.
> https://sourceforge.net/projects/phb-build-tools/
> 
> One of the tools is a JSON protocol compiler. This makes it really
> easy to write a Web Service, all the code required to map API data to
> HTTP messages is done for the programmer. The tools also create
> entries for the reference section in the spec.
> 
> I am just writing a note on the conventions that are used to perform
> this mapping which I will forward to the list in due course. In short
> I could not care less what the mapping is but I do care that
> everything does things in the exact same way and the approach respects
> sound principles of layer abstraction etc.
> 
> 
> Now for the problem. This is how I describe the discovery process:
> 
> "Beginning with a DNS address of the service (e.g. example.com), the
> client identifies a specific HTTP URL at which to access the service.
> The DNS SRV record [!RFC2782] and Well Known Service [!RFC5785]
> mechanisms are used for this purpose."
> 
> 
> So the basic idea is that given an address 'example.com' and a
> protocol 'mmm', the client first attempts to resolve a host using an
> SRV lookup:
> 
> _mmm._tcp.example.com 0 5 80 host1.example.com
> 
> Having found our host, we now use it to construct the web service endpoint:
> 
> To: host1.example.com
> POST /.well-known/mmm/
> Host: example.com
> 
> OK, so the spec is all well and good. The problem is that to make this
> work, I need two separate registrations. One for the SRV record and a
> second for the Well Known. That might be acceptable but the next bit
> really is not, getting an SRV record is first come first served,
> getting a Well Known is specification required.
> 
> This is an inconsistency in approach for a start. The two
> registrations serve essentially the same purpose, there should be
> essentially the same approach to registration.
> 
> I attempted to bring this up with the author but the response was
> 'people decided different'. Well now I am pointing out that the result
> is inconsistent.
> 
> In general we should encourage as many people as possible to be using
> the IANA registries and put as few obstacles in their way as possible.
> We should not worry about the possibility of 'damaging the Internet'.
> The people I deal with on a daily basis have been actively attempting
> to destroy it for two decades without much success. And the biggest
> potential for causing problems in this particular case is two people
> attempting to use the same identifier - the very problem that the
> registry is there to avoid.
> 
> I will also note that the use of the .well-known registry has been
> negligible to date
> http://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris/well-known-uris.xhtml
> 
> 
> I suggest we adopt one of two solutions to this:
> 
> 1) Make the criteria for listing the same as SRV (first come)
> 
> 2) Delete the registry completely and fold it into the Well Known
> protocols registry used for SRV so that anyone registering an SRV
> protocol access prefix will get the Well Known automatically.
> 
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Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/