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

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

> On Jan 14, 2016, at 7:01 AM, Eliot Lear <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Mark,
> 
> On 1/14/16 6:34 AM, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>> You can also register /.well-known/phks-protocols/ and do whatever you like under it.
> 
> By your own words, that's simply not true unless there is a
> specification tied to it, and personally I think that's a very high
> bar.

Why is it a high bar to require a written description of the identified
space?  It doesn't require an IETF spec.  Mark is right -- if there is a
spec of why the identifier exists, the owner can do anything with further
identifiers under that space.  A review is desired because almost half of
all proposed uses of .well-known are poorly conceived and more effectively
accomplished with a single link.  But the review does not require consent.

For example, PHB wants to do a standard name search of SRV after doing a
DNS lookup and then use the SRV record to redirect to a reserved URI space.
Sorry, that is brain-numbingly poor use of those protocols.  If the
standard name is standard enough to use under .well-known, then it is
standard enough to assign directly within DNS (just like www) by the
same admin that would have crafted an SRV record, which saves two
completely useless application redirects and a whole lot of ridiculous
discussion on IETF registration lists.

The discussion does not prevent a person from registering the space
anyway, if they happen to be as stubborn as any one of us, but at least
it gives us a record of why the identifier exists and maybe some legacy
understanding of bad uses of that space.

....Roy