Subject: IRIs, URIs, and RFC 2396bis

From: Mark Pilgrim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 13:38:50 -0400

The Atom 0.3 draft [1] states that "Link constructs MUST have a href
attribute, whose value MUST be a URI [RFC2396]" [2].  Should this be
changed to "whose value MUST be a URI, as defined by RFC2396 or its
successor," so that Atom can benefit from RFC2396bis? [3]

Alternatively, we could state "whose value MUST be an IRI" [4].  After
reading all three specs (RFC 2396, RFC 2396bis, and the IRI draft), I
am not entirely sure what their relationship is.  RFC 2396bis appears
to obsolete RFC 2396, and IRIs appear to "have a dependency on RFC
2396bis" [5].  Currently Atom mandates RFC 2396 only.  I do not see
any discussion of this on the Atom wiki [6], and only one passing
mention of it in the list archives. [7]

Could someone with more experience shed some light on this situation?

[1] http://www.mnot.net/drafts/draft-nottingham-atom-format-02.html
[2] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2396.txt
[3] http://gbiv.com/protocols/uri/rev-2002/rfc2396bis.html
[4] http://www.w3.org/International/iri-edit/draft-duerst-iri.html
[5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webarch-comments/2004Feb/0001.html
[6] http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/UniversalResourceIdentifier
[7] http://www.imc.org/atom-syntax/mail-archive/msg02941.html

-- 
Cheers,
-Mark