Re: 6MAN WG [second] Last Call: draft-ietf-6man-uri-zoneid-01.txt

[Bob Hinden <[e-mail]>]

With my co-author hat on, would it help to include a description of what IE supports in Section 3. Web Browsers?

Bob


On Jul 6, 2012, at 6:01 AM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

> Dave,
> 
> 1) FYI, the deadline we gave the URI list to comment on this has just
> passed, with only one (positive) reply.
> 
> 2) It's for the WG Chairs to say if they want another version
> in view of your comments.
> 
> 3) I don't see how the % format is currently legal. There's
> no provision for any characters after the IPv6 address, whether
> percent-encoded or not. We heard of browsers that previously
> allowed full RFC 4007 syntax (% *not* treated as an escape)
> but this is the first I've heard of IE allowing a zone index
> at all.
> 
> Regards
>   Brian
> 
> On 2012-07-06 02:28, Dave Thaler wrote:
>> I know it's after the designated end of WGLC, but here's my feedback...
>> 
>> The document appears to call out existing practice in several places, such as in section 1:
>>>  Some versions of some browsers accept the RFC 4007 syntax for scoped
>>>  IPv6 addresses embedded in URIs, i.e., they have been coded to
>>>  interpret the "%" sign according to RFC 4007 instead of RFC 3986.
>> and in Appendix A point 1:
>>> Advantage: works today.
>> 
>> However, it's missing discussion of other alternatives already in common practice.
>> For example alternative 3 (escaping the escape character as allowed by RFC 3986) has:
>>>      Advantage: allows use of browser.
>>> 
>>>      Disadvantage: ugly and confusing, doesn't allow simple cut and
>>>      paste.
>> 
>> The disadvantage is certainly true.  However the main advantage are notably
>> lacking, which is that it's already in common practice in many places (to the extent
>> that using a zone id at all is common practice anyway).
>> 
>> You'll see at 
>> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa385325(v=vs.85).aspx
>> that alternative 3 is what is supported in IE7 and above, and the APIs are generally
>> available to Windows applications (i.e. not just IE7).
>> 
>> The document does not state whether the existing legal use is suddenly 
>> declared to be illegal, or just another legal way of doing the same thing.
>> 
>> If you're telling existing applications and OS's that use alternative 3 that they
>> have to change, that doesn't sound like a good thing.   That's because many apps
>> want to be OS-version-independent and use URI parsing libraries provided by
>> the OS.   We don't want apps to code their own URI parsing (it's very easy to
>> get wrong, especially when you add various internationalization issues). 
>> As a result, apps will tend to code to the lowest common denominator of
>> OS's they want to work on.    That means I expect to see apps coding to
>> alternative 3 for the foreseeable future.   When they don't use them in 
>> edit boxes, the disadvantage of not being able to cut and paste is not a
>> real disadvantage.
>> 
>> Personally I don't have an issue with allowing both formats if the WG feels
>> strongly that a cut-and-paste-friendly format is needed in addition to
>> what's existing practice, though having two does affect the rules for 
>> comparison (see draft-iab-identifier-comparison section 3.1.2) but not
>> noticeably.
>> 
>> Finally, the stated disadvantage of alternative 3 is only a disadvantage if the
>> specified scheme in section 2 *does* allow cut-and-paste.   For that to
>> happen, it means the zone id separator has to work outside the context of
>> URIs.   That is, section 2 says:
>>>  Thus, the scoped address fe80::a%en1 would appear in a URI as
>>>  http://[fe80::a-en1].
>> 
>> To support cut-and-paste, that means that
>> "ping fe80::a-en1" 
>> needs to work.   But this document is titled
>> " Representing IPv6 Zone Identifiers in Uniform Resource Identifiers"
>> and similarly the abstract limits its scope to URIs.
>> 
>> Hence section 2 is in contradiction with the analysis of alternative 3.
>> The document already says it "updates 4007" so it seems that what's
>> lacking is a section specifically updating RFC 4007 section 11 which would
>> declare that both '%' and '-' are acceptable separators in the textual
>> representation.
>> 
>> -Dave
>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of
>>> Ole Trøan
>>> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 5:18 AM
>>> To: [e-mail] Mailing List
>>> Cc: [e-mail] Chairs; draft-ietf-6man-uri-
>>> [e-mail]
>>> Subject: 6MAN WG [second] Last Call: draft-ietf-6man-uri-zoneid-01.txt
>>> 
>>> All,
>>> 
>>> This message starts a one-week 6MAN Working Group Last Call on advancing:
>>>     Title     : Representing IPv6 Zone Identifiers in Uniform
>>>                 Resource Identifiers
>>>     Author(s) : Brian Carpenter
>>>                 Robert M. Hinden
>>>     Filename  : draft-ietf-6man-uri-zoneid-01.txt
>>>     Pages     : 9
>>>     Date      : 2012-05-29
>>> 
>>> 
>>> as a Proposed Standard. Substantive comments should be directed to the
>>> mailing list or the co-chairs. Editorial suggestions can be sent to the authors.
>>> This last call will end on June 20, 2012.
>>> Regards,
>>> Bob, & Ole
>>> --------------------------------------------------------------------
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>> 
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