Re: [URN] Re: URI documents

[Patrik Faltstrom <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, 25 Dec 1997, John C. Mallery wrote:

> Hi Larry,
> 
> Just to be clear, I choose C.
> 
> C Separate documents for URLs, URIs, and URNs.
> 
> Meaning that:
> 
> Documents a, b, d are unacceptable.

I agree with the above. (c) is the only working solution.

This is needed because the document currently under the name of a URI
syntax document talk so much about URLs, and use a terminology that is
only valid for URLs, that confusion occurs regarding, if nothing else, the
difference between a URL and a URN. It does not help that the document
have "may" all over the place.

I think it is definitely better if we have documents about URIs, URNs and
URLs, so the number of "may" can be limited to a minimum when we talk
about so important things as grammars and what characters are allowed, how
encoding is done and how to handle/accept things like fragments, queries
and relative addressing.

Personally I have not read the URI syntax document until I, as a member of
the URN working group, was told about the URL syntax document turning into
a URI syntax document during the IETF in Washington, DC. Leslie, as the
chair of the working group, promised to talk to the authors, the area
directors and Larry as the chair of the HTTP group, about the problems we
in the URN working group saw with the intention of the document changed,
and because of that I have not said anything until now. 

I have now reread draft-fielding-uri-syntax-01.txt aswell as Leslies two
proposed documents, to test the thesis I have that (c) is the best choice,
and I must say that it is.

   Patrik