Re: [Uri-review] Registration request for "at" URI scheme

[Melvin Carvalho <[e-mail]>]

st 10. 5. 2023 v 21:16 odesílatel Paul Frazee <[e-mail]> napsal:

> Why don't I get a writeup done to clear up questions (I apologize for not
> leading with one). I'll address what you're suggesting/asking about,
> Melvin, and some of the other questions. While I'm working on that, feel
> free to drop in more questions and I'll include them in the writeup.
>

Looking forward to that.

I do feel that the short nature of "at://" could lead to confusion with
other URI schemes. Recently it was remarked "dhttp" could be easily
mistaken for "http", with a typing error (leaving out a preceding space). I
can't help but observe, the previously registered provisional "dat:" scheme
[1] (coincidentally registered by a P. Frazee), is also quite compact, and
has a similar collision possibility.

The "at://" scheme had a different name ("adx") less than 9 months ago [2],
before rebranding, which may indicate potential instability.  See quote:
"uris should be of the form adx://did/namespace/dataset/tid" [3]

Might I suggest considering "atproto://" or "atp://" as more future
proofed? They maintain the core concept but could help to avoid future
conflicts.

[1] https://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/prov/dat

[2]
https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/tree/c23df960a9bd353bf167e555d1a37c5ad7c14661

[3] https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/pull/162


>
> Paul
>
> On Wed, May 10, 2023 at 1:29 PM Melvin Carvalho <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> st 10. 5. 2023 v 19:29 odesílatel Paul Frazee <[e-mail]> napsal:
>>
>>> The idea is indeed that at:// could user-facing in the same way http://
>>> is. The intent is to express a social address so that I could be at://
>>> pfrazee.com to provide a social identity and http://pfrazee.com to
>>> provide a website. We're hoping to make the scheme intuitive to people, as
>>> it has a clear connection to the "@pfrazee.com" convention.
>>>
>>> I can understand the hesitance around what we're proposing. It's a
>>> common word and assigning it to an early project is a big ask. I'd like to
>>> keep the scheme because I believe it's user-friendly, but I also don't want
>>> to push something that people aren't comfortable with.
>>>
>>> My question from here is, is there a way forward to address the concerns
>>> around this proposal, or do folks feel like this proposal is a non-starter?
>>> If there is a path forward, how can we help get there?
>>>
>>
>> Potential Approach
>>
>> I've noticed similarities between Webfinger, which aimed to return JSON
>> from a DNS-like identifier with an "@" symbol, and your current situation.
>> Webfinger eventually established the acct: URI scheme. However, in 2012,
>> Mark Nottingham suggested an alternative lookup method, such as
>> ".well-known/webfinger?user=bob@host".
>>
>> You might consider registering an "atprotocol" under .well-known and use
>> the following format: ".well-known/atprotocol?user=<atproto_identifier>".
>> If the dereferencing is handled by the BGS rather than individual hosts,
>> perhaps a simple lookup would suffice, eliminating the need for a new URI
>> scheme.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Paul
>>>
>>> On Wed, May 10, 2023 at 10:54 AM Graham Klyne <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> A small clarification to Eliot's comment: the *provisional* registry is
>>>> FCFS, but there is still a possibility for a hold-up come the time this is
>>>> advanced to a permanent registration.  The good news is that by raising
>>>> this here and now (rather than waiting for a permanent registration
>>>> review), there's a better chance that a consensus on this issue can emerge
>>>> before the protocol is very widely deployed.  So, thank you for doing that!
>>>>
>>>> #g
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 08/05/2023 09:18, Eliot Lear wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Bryan,
>>>>
>>>> As Alex mentioned, I wasn't referring to URI schemes, but rather that
>>>> the word "at" is not descript, reused in many different contexts, from
>>>> Austria to a preposition, to a scheduling command in UNIX to various other
>>>> acronym expansions.  My understanding is that the registry is FCFS, and so
>>>> this is *advice*.  Whatever you choose you'll be stuck with.  If you
>>>> even added an extra character or two that could make more clear what this
>>>> is, you may find it helpful later on.
>>>>
>>>> Eliot
>>>> On 08.05.23 00:14, [e-mail] wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi Eliot,
>>>>
>>>> We did do both some general search, and checked against the URI schema
>>>> registry when starting work on the protocol, and are not aware of any
>>>> problematic existing use or conflicts the the use of the URI scheme name.
>>>>
>>>> The closest confusion we are aware of with 'at' is the Hayes AT command
>>>> originally used with modems. We are unaware of any URI scheme specifically
>>>> for the Hayes AT command set, and while that command set is still in broad
>>>> use, it does not seem likely to start using one now.
>>>>
>>>> "at" matches our protocol name ("AT" stands for "Authenticated
>>>> Transfer"). There is a bit of wordplay going on with "@" (the "at symbol"),
>>>> which is used as a prefix convention in social media to indicate a user
>>>> handle. AT Protocol is primarily used for social media applications (at
>>>> least, that is the focus at present).
>>>>
>>>> As precedent, there are several other two-character URI schemes in the
>>>> current registry.
>>>>
>>>> URIs starting with "at://" are already being used by several
>>>> implementations of the AT Protocol. At this point it seems like a change
>>>> would only add to confusion.
>>>>
>>>> --bryan
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, 7 May 2023, Eliot Lear wrote:
>>>>
>>>> As another casual observer, can I suggest that you use a slightly more
>>>> descriptive scheme name?  "at" is heavily overloaded, and a name that
>>>> provides at least a guess what this is will serve the user better.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Uri-review mailing [e-mail]://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/uri-review
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Graham Klynemailto:[e-mail] <[e-mail]>http://www.ninebynine.org
>>>> Mastodon: @[e-mail]
>>>> GitHub/Skype: @gklyne
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Uri-review mailing list
>>> [e-mail]
>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/uri-review
>>>
>>