# Changes to URL document

Alan Emtage (bajan@bunyip.com)
Mon, 7 Feb 1994 11:28:49 -0500

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    Message-Id: <9402071628.AA24337@mocha.bunyip.com>

    From: bajan@bunyip.com (Alan Emtage)

    Date: Mon, 7 Feb 1994 11:28:49 -0500

    To: uri@bunyip.com

    Subject: Changes to URL document

Hi All,
Tim and I have exchanged mail over the past couple of days and he
has made some revisions to the current URL draft. [It is available as
<URL:ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/doc/draft-uri-url-02.txt> and
<URL:ftp://info.cern.ch/pub/www/doc/draft-uri-url-02.ps>]

Tim also says that there is a change list summrising changes to the
document at URL:http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/Addressing/URL/7_1_Changes.html

I have retrieved the draft and asked Tim to make the following changes to
conform to the decisions of the working group before resubmitting it to
the Secretariat as a new draft.

----------------------

1) From the minutes:

- The Area Directors require the group to produce a companion document
to the current URL draft containing a list of functional
specifications and requirements. This document can then be used to
determine if the current URL draft meets the requirements. Similar
documents will be required for all UR* protocol specifications.

I believe that the initial discussion in the current draft is in conflict
with this since the first 6 or so pages try to fill this role and this
will be taken up by another document. This document should concern itself
with the definition of the URL and leave the design criteria to the doc
mentioned above.

2) The term "universal" is used quite widely in the document. Since the
group decided some time ago (when we changed the name to Uniform Resource
Identifier), this is probably not appropriate. We can't really claim to
have a "universal" system. A "uniform" system more adequately describes
it.

3) While the document is "wordsmithed" by the author, under the IETF process
it is viewed as the product of the working group and as such "author's
comments" are probably not appropriate (such as those in the section on
readability). In any case this more properly belongs in the requirements
document.

4) References to non-standard URLs should be left out in the main text.
For example the section on the "Full Form" URL don't make much sense since
for the purposes of the document there is no other form. The same applies
to references to fragments in the main body. I suggest that if you would
like to put these into the process that they be split out from this
document entirely and submitted to the working group for separate
consideration.

5) The WG has decided that the "URL:" prefix is standard and this should be
made clear in the draft. Currently the only place that this appears is in
the BNF. It should rightly be part of the "Scheme" section which
currently makes no mention of it.

[There are a couple of sentences which don't parse. "Abstract" final
paragraph and "Characteristics" for example. I'm sure the list will be
happy to make an editing pass]

------------------

    --
    -Alan

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    Alan Emtage,				"The Left in Canada is more gauche
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