# Re: Mail addresses as URLs

John C Klensin (KLENSIN@INFOODS.MIT.EDU)
Tue, 11 May 1993 10:13:49 -0400 (EDT)

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    Date: Tue, 11 May 1993 10:13:49 -0400 (EDT)

    From: John C Klensin <KLENSIN@INFOODS.MIT.EDU>

    Subject: Re:  Mail addresses as URLs

    In-Reply-To: <9305111126.AA02833@www3.cern.ch>

    To: timbl@NXOC01.CERN.CH

    Message-Id: <737129629.876103.KLENSIN@INFOODS.UNU.EDU>

Tim,

I think the idea of permitting an email address is reasonable, although
it brings us another step closer to a uniform human locator, as in "if
'mailto' then why not 'faxto', 'telephoneto', 'postto' and so on.

However you are going to need to be extremely careful about syntax. The
correct model should be able to accomodate _any_ valid RFC822 address,
implying not only "mailto:usermailbox@domain" but including the
Personal Name <usermailbox@domain>
form and several others.

RFC1327 forms of X.400 addresses projected into the RFC822 environment
also mean that we need to be very careful about quoting and structure,
since those addresses are heavily solidus (/)-laden.

This makes me quite hesitant about forms like Thomas Bruce's
mailto://some.mail.host.dom/somebody
because it implies that we will need to very carefully work out and
document transformation rules for all of the different variations of
RFC822 addresses into and out of this format. It would be easier, and
safer, to use RFC822 addresses in as literal a form as possible, so we
could just refer to that document and its descendants.

--john

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