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Re: Last Call: <draft-holsten-about-uri-scheme-06.txt> (The 'about' URI scheme) to Proposed Standard

2011-01-21 10:58:00
Howdy,

Some comments in-line.

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 12:28 AM, Julian Reschke 
<julian(_dot_)reschke(_at_)gmx(_dot_)de> wrote:
On 21.01.2011 02:13, Ted Hardie wrote:

...
But the reality is that the behavior resulting from these URIs is totally
non-deterministic and varies from context to context.  In most contexts
outside of a browser location bar, they are meaningless. Inside that
context, the browser's definition seems to be definitive.  If the aim
is only to get about:blank fully specified, I'd suggest saying so
outright,
and noting clearly that all other uses are context-dependent, with
returning about:blank recommended practice  for those unknown.
...

That sounds reasonable. Let's not make it more complicated than it needs to
be.


Okay.
As a thought experiment, would the W3C counsel against the presence
of an about URI in an XML namespace?

Reminder: the reason this was written down was so that "about:legacy-compat"
can be specified as XML system identifier in HTML5
(<http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html#the-doctype>).


This rationale isn't in the draft, nor is the token legacy-compat.
Having looked
at the section you reference, I see it also defines about:srcdoc as reserved,
unresolvable URI.  It should be included in this doc, if it goes forward.

That said, I note that HTML5 has a number of what it calls "willful violations"
of the URI spec, in which it counsels the reading who actually knows what
the spec says to pretend it was using a term other than URI.  (One of these
is just past the fragment identifier used above).  Most uses of about
are outliers in the URI world by a long chalk.  Why not simply define about
as a different identifier form that happens to have a colon in it
(which, broadly,
it is) and make its use as system identifier in HTML5 a "willful violation" of
the XML spec?  That seems entirely consistent with the document's modus operandi
and save IANA the trouble of setting up a registry.

best regards,

Ted


Additionally, naming a change controller should generally be a bit more
precise than an organization name.  The W3C director or TAG seems
more appropriate than just "W3C".

I just checked an image/svg+xml has "W3C" as change controller. Why would
the requirement be different here?

Best regards, Julian

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