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

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

Just to clarify a point people have brought up with me in private.

Yes, I am aware that Mark Nottingham is the DE for assignment of
.well-known URIs and not Mr Fielding.

That is something I was hoping Mark would point out himself. The
information is public, but it isn't necessarily something people
reading the conversation are aware of.

The reason I originally brought this up is because of complaints about
IETF process that I have received. The external perception of IETF is
that there is an inside clique who effectively gets to decide
everything through control of registration of code points. And right
now I have to agree with them.


I want this registry gone because I think it is an anathema to what
the IETF claims to stand for. Review by a Designated Expert is not an
open process. Review by a DE is not a consensus process. Review by a
DE is a distinctly unequal situation in which one party is Pope, the
other a supplicant.

Now there are cases where DE review is necessary because the code
points are limited. But this is not one of those cases and those cases
simply should not exist above the Transport layer.

The way to get architectural consistency is to describe an
architecture with sufficient clarity that people follow it as the
natural and easiest course to follow. My experience of multiple DE
reviews of URIs is that each has made demands that are completely the
opposite of the previous reviewers.

There is also a policy issue here which I think we are going to need
to discuss on the IETF list rather than here which is what level
policy should be set on such issues. Introducing a gatekeeper into the
process of deploying Internet applications is not a matter for one
working group or even one area.