Re: [webfinger] Absolute URI vs URI

[John Bradley <[e-mail]>]

Relative URI are not useful without a base to be relative to.  Unless we say how to determine the base of a relative URI they should not be allowed.

I an imagine several ways to determine a base but without specifying it applications will not behave consistently.   The JRD is not a HTML document.

John B.

On 2013-07-24, at 12:58 PM, Melvin Carvalho <[e-mail]> wrote:

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> On 22 July 2013 16:10, Paul E. Jones <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Melvin,
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> It’s easy enough to replace strings in URIs should data need to be ported.  I suggest we remove the word “absolute” where we currently have “absolute URI” and then introduce a new paragraph in the terminology section as follows:
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> The use of URIs throughout this document refers to URIs following the syntax specified in Section 3 of RFC 3986.  Relative URIs, having syntax following that of Section 4.2 or RFC 3986, are not used with WebFinger.
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> Is that clear?
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> Hi Paul, currently "Absolute URI" occurs only in section 4.4 (ie the description of JRD).  Certainly I think the 'absolute' should be removed in section 4.4.  
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> The RFC in essence describes two things, 
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> 1. the webfinger protocol
> 2. the JRD definition
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> This restriction on relative URIs applies to (2), rather than, the whole document, but as it happens that turns out to be the same thing
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> Side note: in other situations I like relative URIs because they can be moved from one location to another in a non-breaking way.  Say I have /about/ /photos/ /blog/ at one location, I can move them to another without having to worry too much.  Therefore, if JRD was ever used in a context outside of webfinger, that would be a slight advantage.
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> Paul
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> From: Melvin Carvalho [mailto:[e-mail]] 
> Sent: Monday, July 22, 2013 4:09 AM
> To: Paul E. Jones
> Cc: webfinger
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> 
> Subject: Re: [webfinger] Absolute URI vs URI
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> On 22 July 2013 09:06, Paul E. Jones <[e-mail]> wrote:
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> In not suggesting we use or allow relative URIs. The immediate question would be "relative to what". I think the URIs should be absolute, but not following the syntax of "absolute-URI", but instead just following "URI".
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> Yes, that's a good question.  Generally relative URIs are relative to the document, but they need not be.  For example they could be relative by default to the [supposed] webfinger registry.  In JSON LD they have a @context variable which allows quite a bit of flexibility in this regard.  I'm unsure if relative URIs are considered a must in standards based serialization (I suspect not) but they have the advantage of slightly increased data portability.
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> Paul
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> From: Melvin Carvalho <[e-mail]>
> Sent: Mon Jul 22 02:46:25 EDT 2013
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> To: "Paul E. Jones" <[e-mail]>
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> Cc: webfinger <[e-mail]>
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> Subject: Re: [webfinger] Absolute URI vs URI
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> On 22 July 2013 07:47, Paul E. Jones <[e-mail]> wrote:
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> Folks,
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> One of the requirements in the JRD spec is that certain URIs (e.g., those
> identifying link relation types and properties) be "absolute URIs".  This
> term has been a point of confusion, since RFC 3986 uses the term to have a
> concrete meaning, namely this:
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>      absolute-URI  = scheme ":" hier-part [ "?" query ]
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> And the term is used, because that's the term used in the OASIS XRD
> specification.  However, it was not clear to me whether that referred to the
> above (which I assumed) or referred to URIs that are not relative URIs
> (i.e., those lacking a scheme specified).
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> I had an exchange with Eran Hammer and Mark Nottingham.  I believe the
> intent of that language was not to require the above constrained syntax,
> but to require the standard URI syntax:
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>      URI = scheme ":" hier-part [ "?" query ] [ "#" fragment ]
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> There are many ways that people do this, see:
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> http://tantek.com/2011/238/b1/many-ways-slice-url-name-pieces
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> Given that understanding, I believe we should remove the word "absolute"
> that appears in front of "URI" in the WebFinger spec.  Do others have an
> opinion on this?
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> +1 on allowing relative URIs
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> Paul
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