Re: Yet Another Attribute Parameter

Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com> Wed, 18 December 1996 07:31 UTC

Received: from cnri by ietf.org id aa08617; 18 Dec 96 2:31 EST
Received: from services.Bunyip.Com by CNRI.Reston.VA.US id aa04020; 18 Dec 96 2:31 EST
Received: (from daemon@localhost) by services.bunyip.com (8.6.10/8.6.9) id CAA07718 for uri-out; Wed, 18 Dec 1996 02:14:36 -0500
Received: from mocha.bunyip.com (mocha.Bunyip.Com [192.197.208.1]) by services.bunyip.com (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id CAA07713 for <uri@services.bunyip.com>; Wed, 18 Dec 1996 02:14:34 -0500
Received: from alpha.Xerox.COM by mocha.bunyip.com with SMTP (5.65a/IDA-1.4.2b/CC-Guru-2b) id AA29333 (mail destined for uri@services.bunyip.com); Wed, 18 Dec 96 02:14:27 -0500
Received: from palimpsest.parc.xerox.com ([13.1.101.126]) by alpha.xerox.com with SMTP id <19812(3)>; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 23:09:15 PST
Received: by palimpsest.parc.xerox.com id <142>; Tue, 17 Dec 1996 23:09:07 PDT
To: howes@netscape.com
Cc: michaelm@rwhois.net, ietf-asid@umich.edu, uri@bunyip.com
In-Reply-To: <32B71AED.3359@netscape.com> (message from Tim Howes on Tue, 17 Dec 1996 14:13:01 PST)
Subject: Re: Yet Another Attribute Parameter
From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Message-Id: <96Dec17.230907pdt."142"@palimpsest.parc.xerox.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 22:09:07 -0800
Sender: owner-uri@bunyip.com
Precedence: bulk

This is an issue for the new URL working group, to give guidelines on
what belongs in a URL and what doesn't, so I hope you don't mind if I
bring uri@bunyip.com into it. (The conversation should move to
ietf-url@imc.org as soon as that's created.)

Michael:
> In RWhois we are working on a UDP version. Several other protocols have
> both UDP and TCP connection styles. The problem is that URLs don't specify
> which service to use. ...
Tim:
> After thinking about this a bit, I think it makes more sense to
> include this information in the URL itself. A URL is supposed to be
> self-contained, including everything you need to know to access some
> resource. If the protocol you use runs over both TCP and UDP, there
> should be a way in the URL format to indicate which one (or not, if it
> doesn't matter).

The precedent hasn't really been that way. For example, 'ftp:' URLs
don't tell you the media type, and our attempt to make people use URLs
that tell you whether the remote file is text or binary has basically
failed.

If the protocol runs over both TCP and UDP, why not just say 'try UDP
and if it doesn't work, use TCP, and remember that UDP doesn't work to
that host'.

Is this acceptable? Is there any consensus on putting this guideline
into the URL process document?

Larry