Re: [link-relations] NEW RELATION REQUEST - pingback

[Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]>]

I don't think so. The requirement in "Specification Required" is for the specification to be both "in sufficient detail so that interoperability between independent implementations is possible" and "permanent and readily available":

>       Specification Required - Values and their meanings must be
>             documented in a permanent and readily available public
>             specification, in sufficient detail so that interoperability
>             between independent implementations is possible[...]  
>             The intention behind
>             "permanent and readily available" is that a document can
>             reasonably be expected to be findable and retrievable long
>             after IANA assignment of the requested value.  Publication
>             of an RFC is an ideal means of achieving this requirement,
>             but Specification Required is intended to also cover the
>             case of a document published outside of the RFC path.  For
>             RFC publication, the normal RFC review process is expected
>             to provide the necessary review for interoperability, though
>             the Designated Expert may be a particularly well-qualified
>             person to perform such a review.

Ian, I understand that your argument is that even publishing it on your Web site makes it "permanent and readily available," since it is archived, copied by others, indexed by Google, etc. While that's good enough for your purposes, historically the IETF / RFC Editor have been reluctant to use URIs at all, much less URIs to personal Web sites to define protocols.

I notice that your document is in the W3C format -- have you considered sending it to them as a Member submission? Alternatively, I'd suggest reformatting as an Internet-Draft and submitting that.

Regards,


On 13/08/2010, at 7:57 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> Maybe there's middle ground:
> 
> - have short RFC that defines the link relation in general
> 
> - have that document reference the "old" spec for the description of a specific pingback service implementation.
> 
> Best regards, Julian


--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/