Re: revised "generic syntax" internet draft

["Martin J. Duerst" <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, 16 Apr 1997, Larry Masinter wrote:

> > Without changing the definition of URLs, we simply define the next version
> > of a particular URL scheme (or a new scheme) which includes the constraint
> > or feature that the %HH escaped characters were generated by a UTF8 aware
> > service. Clients could then take advantage of this updated information in
> > determining how to present the URL or in the ways it would accept URL 
> > inputs.
> 
> I think the language to this effect is already in 
>   draft-masinter-url-process
> 
> That is, I think we've already adopted this.

The process draft definitely covers the case of new schemes well.
But:

- It does not cover new versions of existing schemes.

- It does not cover schemes that came newly into existence before
	the process draft will actually be in force (for example
	the imap URL scheme, which is very eager to follow the
	designation of a recommended character encoding scheme
	for URLs as soon as there is one).

- It does not address the fact that for most cases, the updating
	of an URL scheme happens for reasons orthogonal to
	character encoding, and that UTF-8 can be adopted in
	existing schemes without changing their definition.

Regards,	Martin.