URL: Outstanding issues

Tim Berners-Lee (timbl@ptpc00.cern.ch)
Wed, 23 Mar 94 18:00:59 +0100

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Date: Wed, 23 Mar 94 18:00:59 +0100

From: Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@ptpc00.cern.ch>

Message-Id: <9403231700.AA14218@ptpc00.cern.ch>

To: uri@bunyip.com

Subject: URL: Outstanding issues

As these are working notes comments ok on content but not spelling :-)!
Changes document[1] will come in a separate mail.

Outstanding Issues in the URL design
OUTSTANDING URL ISSUES

This is a a running list of issues about URLs and about which which
discussion is still running. These are taken mainly from summaries
on the list by various people. The order is random. As they are
settled I'll leave them in as history. See also the change
history[1].

FTP

TRANSFER MODE

How should the transfer mode be encoded into the URL, if at all?
The current feeling is that it should be optionally encoded as a
suffix by the use of some delimiter.

Editor suggests[2] the use of "!", currently unchallenged.
Requires adding this character to reserved set.

CHANGE ORDER OF ACCOUNT AND PASSWORD

Alan suggested[3] changing the order around. The editor rejects
this :-), subject to outcry, on the basis that:

This is not the time for incompatibe changes

The change is arbitrary

The order "user@host" has a tradition long established, and to
propose "host@user" would drive people crazy.

Gopher+ and search strings

Should the normal URI convention of using "?" as a sparator for
search strings be changed to HT (horizonatl tab) in the case of
Gopher because that is how it is represented in the protocol? This
came up from the extention of gopher to gopher+, but is in fact
orthogan question.

Compare new[4] and old[5] gopher versions.

Editor's comments: No point in breaking existing URls and software
to make something which looks different from other URls.
Translation to make the gopher command line is trivial.

PrePrefix

Should a prefix "URL:" or equivalent be considered part of the URL?
Should it be part of a wrapper used when writing a URL within plain
text? Consesnus declared by the chairman[6] to be that "URL:"
should be a mandatory part of the specification fothe URL for use
in all cases. Later comments by the chairman seem to indicate that
it may be optional.

Strongly disliked by the editor as much as requiring the string
"Telephone:" to be a mandatory part of a telephone number.

Plain text wrapper

In this area, questions are,

Should one define a wrapper to enable a URL to be spotted within
plain text?

Should it be part of the URL? ( no - alan[7] )

Should it be an appenix item, or mandatory? (appendix -ed)

What characters should be used? Consesnus[8] is "<", ">".
Arguments for[9] and against[10] .

Should it include or replaced the prefix mentioned above? (no
-ed)

The chairman suggests[11] the answers are YES, NO, appendix, "<"
and ">", no.

NNTP

Should a format be allowed to refer to a news article on a
specific local NNTP server by group and article number? (
Mitra's argument[12] , TimBL's argument) (consensus: yes, with
warning)

If so, should the same "news" prefix be used? (consesnus:no)

Should "news" be changed to something else such as "nntp" or
"usenet" in all cases? (Consensus: no)

Tim BL[13]

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