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

["Roy T. Fielding" <[e-mail]>]

On Jan 16, 2016, at 10:48 AM, Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]> wrote:

> [Matthew Kerwin wrote:]
>> wasn't .well-known acknowledged to be an anti-pattern when it was set up? And isn't the DE role therefore to turn proposals away which would be better served by a (positive) pattern elsewhere, along with that explanation?
>> 
>> The bar for .well-known should be very high because http != gopher, nor should it ever be.
>> 
> No, it was asserted but never conceded. More importantly, the IETF reviewed and agreed the RFC which makes no mention of such a position. 

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5785#section-1.1 <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5785#section-1.1>

> The position of DE is not meant to be an opportunity to impose a private view of Internet architecture on anyone. It certainly isn't an opportunity to tell people that they should 'do it my way' and especially not when that turns out to be implement someone's 20 year old thesis.

The .well-known namespace has nothing whatsoever to do with REST.  It is based on the
general idea originally exposed by /robots.txt: a set of well known resources for which no link
is necessary, such that a client can attempt to perform some defined (standard) prerequisite
action before some other "normal" action on that same origin server.

http://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris/well-known-uris.xhtml

> I am well aware of the style of architecture that people are suggesting it is the role of the DE to impose. It is a style that I played as much of a part in creating as anyone else did. It is a style that I have used and have since abandoned because I think other approaches are better. 

You have not made a registration request of the DE, nor has anyone suggested that your
poor use of DNS, SRV, and .well-known had anything to do with Web Services vs REST.
Darrel Miller disagreed with your characterization of caching and use of HTTP as an
application tunnel, which is what you should expect when making statements on a mailing
list like apps-discuss that directly contradict all known experience with an IETF protocol.

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/search/?email_list=wellknown-uri-review <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/search/?email_list=wellknown-uri-review>

Mark suggested here that you need to pick a name to register, in accordance with the RFC.

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/CACiBdiDnlW1X7JsnXdEXW22m1U <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/CACiBdiDnlW1X7JsnXdEXW22m1U>
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/X_MTE2a4xKeaPh2zOSlt4qmjNmg <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/X_MTE2a4xKeaPh2zOSlt4qmjNmg> 

I suggested here that you can register a name even if the DE disagrees with your usage,
as there is plenty of actual evidence of that in the mailing list, that a registration discussion
is helpful for preventing misinformed folks from cluttering up the space when they actually
want something else (usually a Link header field), and that such discussion is also useful
for providing a historical record of why registrations are made regardless of suitability.

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/s0JohIW0qcr7ajHUDyJD4bJP86U <https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/s0JohIW0qcr7ajHUDyJD4bJP86U>

The purpose of a DE is to ensure that the registrations meet the criteria of the namespace
as defined by the relevant RFC. Equating all namespaces with port numbers is nonsense.
Port numbers cannot contain trademarks, offensive slogans, or blatant categorical errors.
The .well-known space would be misused under a first-come first-served basis.

And, no, SRV would not have been used by "http" in 1992, nor would it be used in
2016, since having multiple independent Web servers per host has always been a desired
feature (to escape the largely MIS-controlled gopher phenomenon) and it is still common
today to identify configuration websites by local host names and IP addresses.
The MX record as architecture is ideal for the social characteristics of email hosting,
not for the comparatively anarchic nature of website deployment.

Since then, you have repeatedly misquoted and misrepresented what we said in your own
self-serving arguments. If anyone wants to discuss the larger role of DEs within the IETF,
I hope that they do so based on actual events and not on your fabrications.

....Roy