# What we're trying to do here...

Peter Deutsch (peterd@bunyip.com)
Thu, 25 Nov 1993 16:13:57 -0500

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    Message-Id: <9311252114.AA04157@expresso.bunyip.com>

    From: Peter Deutsch <peterd@bunyip.com>

    Date: Thu, 25 Nov 1993 16:13:57 -0500

    In-Reply-To: Tim Berners-Lee's message as of Nov 25, 12:09

    To: timbl@nxoc01.cern.ch

    Subject: What we're trying to do here...

[ Tim wrote: ]
. . .
> It is this fearsome urge to create taxonomies to constrain things
> which are different into boxes of nominal similarity which is
> preventing progress.
. . .
[ and later in the same message wrote: ]

> We (the URI WG) are not inventing things with the URL stuff.
> We are documenting existing practice. The inventions go into the new
> schemes, not the old.

Given our known disagreements in the past over this subject
I've tried to stay out of the current debate over the URL doc,
but I'm afraid I can't let this shot go past without at least
some comment. Despite my reputation, I'll try to be brief...

I think your remarks here illustrate very well where the
source of problems over the URL doc have been in the past 18
months. Given your apparent belief that a standards setting
working group is tasked only with documenting existing
practice and your apparent rejection of the other components
of the IIIR architecture (in particular, your apparently
problem with the concept of URNs), your resistance over the
past year to incorporating into the working group document
changes to your own version of a URL spec is understandable.
Unfortunately, I believe you to be wrong on this issue for at
least two reasons.

First, there are a number of other people besides the WWW
community who have been working with the URI working group to
ensure an orderly transition to the proposed new world of URNs
and URLs. To help prevent chaos a number of other developers
(including those of us responsible for archie, to name but one
group) held up deployment of our own URL schemes to prevent a
rash of incompatible schemes coming into existence at this
critical point. To now argue that we can _only_ consider
existing practice (that is, the WWW URL scheme) seems like
hubris on your part, to say the least.

Second, as others have informed you in the past it is _not_
the purpose of IETF standards setting working groups to merely
document existing practice when creating a standard. In fact,
I would argue that such an approach would not be engineering
at all, but merely documentation and the work of informational
RFCs at best.

Although consideration of existing practice is vital to the
creation of a good engineering solution (we need to know that
what we design will actually work), it cannot be the only issue
considered. If nothing else, it would prevent us from
incorporating additions which could extend functionality
beyond current practice or allow features to slip through
which would hinder a project's ability to exist in a larger
environment.

In particular, we must keep in mind that URLs are certainly not
the last word on integration of Internet information services.
In fact, they are only the first, and their design should take
into consideration the needs of future components of this new
system, even where some changes to existing practice are
therefore required.

Those of us who have argued the need for a functional
specification to guide our work, for prefix ID strings, for
reworked news URLs, and so on have all said that our own work
would be better served if these were in place.

You are free to object when proposed features impact your
installed user base (although the effect of this must be
weighed against the perceived benefit to others before ruling
out a change). You may even point out that you have no need
for a feature in your own work, but in such cases you have no
grounds for denying the rest of us the benefits of such a
feature on that basis alone.

In short, as the leader of the only Internet service project
which currently deploys a form of URL you seem to have been
labouring under the misapprehension that what we were all
doing was meeting to bless your work as a new Internet
standard for others to follow. Far from it. The way I see it
we have all spent the last 18 months creating a new integrated
information architecture for the Internet and drawing upon the
work of many people, yourself included, in the process.

We now have a URL format that reflects the needs and desires
of a wide selection of Internet developers and user
communities (although I doubt if anyone is 100 percent happy
with the current proposal). The new format should have
little, if any impact, on your user base and the proposal has
the support of most of the community at this point. It's time
for us to all hum together and then move on to the next
problem.

I hope we can, at this late date, persuade you to accept a
change in your world view and endorse both the process and the
result. It would be nice if your misunderstanding of what
we've accomplished be worked out before the document be
advanced onto the standards track, although I would also point
out that despite your success with WWW you do not have a veto
on this group's output.

Others have accepted things they disagreed with to accommodate
you in this work and I hope you can see the value of
accommodating the needs of others here, too.

- peterd

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