To:
<namedroppers@internic.net>, <dnsop@cafax.se>
From:
"Phillip M Hallam-Baker" <pbaker@verisign.com>
Date:
Fri, 1 Oct 1999 12:31:24 -0400
Importance:
Normal
In-Reply-To:
<37F295E6.61BE9742@research.bell-labs.com>
Sender:
owner-dnsop@cafax.se
Subject:
RE: IANA, DNS names, URL names...
I am having difficulty following this discussion. From where I stand the biggest problem is overloading of existing protocols (particularly HTTP) for purposes far from the original design intent. A large part of the motivation for this behaviour being to circumvent corporate firewall restrictions. Code re-use and specification re-use is a good thing - but only up to a point. If the principle 'never create a new protocol if an old one will serve' had been applied then HTTP would never have been invented since it is _possible_ to do everything that can be done with HTTP with FTP, albeit in a considerably less efficient manner (and I speak as someone who has implemented both protocols and can give the number of IP round trips required in both cases). The basic structure of a URL is how://where/what. All three components serve a different function. One does not re-invent how without good reason. URIs, which are a superset of URLs and URNs also have the same structure, albeit the syntax in use clearly differs from that proposed in various 'experimental' RFCs. This is one of those cases where certain folk have had very definite views on the syntax. VERY VERY definite views, but which have lacked any explanation which is why I suspect they have been ignored. It appears to me that the tv scheme is really a URN scheme rather than a URL scheme. There is considerable utility in a naming mechanism which allows resources to be identified, even if it is not possible to retrieve them. Unfortunately I do not see any means of resolving the issue at this stage. The URN working group proposed a syntax that bears no relation to the URL syntax and introduced spurious 'requirements' that had no justification (actually they might have had a justification but people steadfastly refused to ever give me one, for seven years I have been told "that was decided before you arrived" and "It is too late to change that now, we have to finish in 3 months"). In short I don't think the IETF need argue about the matter any further because people trying to build stuff in the real world have long since learned to ignore the IETF working groups claiming 'ownership' of the area. Phill