Re: Minor clarification on url: prefix

Tim Berners-Lee (timbl@www3.cern.ch)
Thu, 2 Dec 93 11:53:21 +0100

Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 11:53:21 +0100
From: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@www3.cern.ch>
Message-Id: <9312021053.AA02421@www3.cern.ch>
To: mitra@path.net (Mitra)
Subject: Re: Minor clarification on url: prefix

Hey, Mitra, I understood that you were FOR the prefix.
Now I understand that

Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Terry Allen <terry@ora.com>
mitra@path.net (Mitra)
Erik Ostrom <eostrom@pepperoncini.gac.edu>

at least as well as myself were against it. Also it was voted out
at the previous meeting. Could those with strong views raise their
hands perhaps? A for or against hand? To get this "rough consensus"
straight...

___________
Issue: Should the string "URL:" be considered a mandatory
initial string of any URL.

Arguments (abbreviated .. as far as I can remeember.. )

For: It is useful to be able to know when one has a URL.
Like in plain text.

Against: This is messy when you know what it is already,
like in a "URL" field.
so don't include the tag as PART of the URL

For: But we need to know it isn't a URL when there are URNs
around

Against: URNs will have a specific prefix anyway.

Against: The URL/URN distinction is not so clear anyway

For: We must change this spec some way in case it settles down

Against: No counterargument.