Subject: a question that has been bugging me....

From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 15:55:23 -0400

Ok, I know we're all geeks here but bear with me:

This has been bugging me for a while so I'll just ahead and spew about it.
CNRP is meant to hide some of the syntactic crud we fostered on unsuspecting
grandmothers the world over, right. Well, if that's the case, why did we
pick something as cryptic as 'cnrp' as our URI scheme name?

I know the long term intent is that the "open url" bar or whatever you want
to call it should eventually hide even this but that time will be at least
a few years in the future. Could we possibly redefine the CNRP URI to
have a URI scheme that's a little more palatable to the non-geek in the
world? My specific suggestino would be "go:".

i.e. we'd have this:
go:Haagen Dazs

instead of

cnrp:Haagen Dazs

The former just seems more 'friendly'...

-Michael "Preparing to be stoned" Mealling

--
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Michael Mealling        |      Vote Libertarian!       | www.rwhois.net/michael
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From: Milton Mueller <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 17:40:21 -0400

Actually this suggestion makes good sense. That part of the interface is an
important part of the standard to end users. One possible issue to consider while
you're ducking stones is whether the "Go" network might feel infringed upon.

Michael Mealling wrote:

> Could we possibly redefine the CNRP URI to

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From: Rick H Wesson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 15:06:41 -0700

michaelm,

while "go:" may make sense for anyone who speaks english, once you start
using localized terms others (me?) are going to scream about
internalionalization issues. OTOH, if you convince the IETFers that the
acronym "go" has some meaning parallel to cnrp then i think you have a leg
up on the renaming.

I would be conserned that the term "go" would give more market
oppertunities to the folks running the cnrp databases, and why shold cnrp
be different from all the other URI schemes?

oh, then there is the issue milton raised of trademark issues...

-rick

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From: "Marshall L. Moseley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 15:09:03 -0700

AOL also might have a use patent on 'GO <keyword>'

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From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 18:13:36 -0400

> acronym "go" has some meaning parallel to cnrp then i think you have a leg

Sure. But this is an issue of internationalized URIs in general. I.e.
can we have internationalized URI scheme names. Regardless of the answer
I would hope the use of the prefix would go away eventually. Yes
i18n is a goal but it doesn't mean we have to pick intentionally
cryptic names. I.e. is 'cnrp' anymore international?

> oppertunities to the folks running the cnrp databases,

Well.... it has been said that one reason several technologies (ipv6..ahem)
haven't taken off is that the IETF does a poor job marketing itself.

> and why shold cnrp be different from all the other URI schemes?

Oh? Like "tv:"? ;-)

> oh, then there is the issue milton raised of trademark issues...

I actually think those aren't real. If so then we'd all have to pay
royalties when we say we're "ready to go" or some sillines... Now
if we incorporated their logo art.....

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From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 18:15:30 -0400

> AOL also might have a use patent on 'GO <keyword>'

I can check on that if anyone cares. I did check with someone from
Compuserve along time ago about this and they said that they didn't.
But I'll get someone to check either way...

-MM

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From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 22:11:24 +0100

I think it sounds good, too.

If go: is a problem, there's always...
    find:
    fetch:
    name:
    get:
    ...

I do remember reading once that naming a URL scheme with a verb was
considered maybe a mistake (as in mailto:), so maybe the better option
above is 'name:'.  OTOH, go: has a certain history and resonance that
overcomes such detail concerns.

#g

> > world? My specific suggestino would be "go:".

------------
Graham Klyne
([email-masked])

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From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 07:10:20 -0400

On Tue, Jun 06, 2000 at 06:46:24AM +0200, Patrik Fältström wrote:
> At 15.55 -0400 00-06-05, Michael Mealling wrote:
> >i.e. we'd have this:
> >go:Haagen Dazs
> >
> >instead of
> >
> >cnrp:Haagen Dazs
>
> What about
>
>     go:Hägen Dazs
>
> ??

That was the intent. I just didn't want to spend an hour trying to
figure out how to represent that character. Besides, I think there
are still two As. At least according to the $1000 question on
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire a few nights ago....

-MM

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From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 06:46:24 +0200

What about

    go:Hägen Dazs

??

   paf

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From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 10:34:18 -0400

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

> >     go:Hägen Dazs

Without getting into the "what the user types" vs "what's on the wire"
issue, there are 2 characters of issue there:

" " between "Hägen" and "Dazs", as " " is neither <unreserved> nor
    <escaped>

"ä" which should be unicoded (and, no, I don't know what the rep is)

Not to be a wet mop on "human friendliness" or anything...

Leslie.

--

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"My body obeys Aristotelian laws of physics."
   -- ThinkingCat

Leslie Daigle
[email-masked]
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From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 14:24:07 -0400

> Not to be a wet mop on "human friendliness" or anything...

Most definitly! That should have actually been:
go:Ha%90gen%20Dazs

-MM

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From: Leslie Daigle <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 14:42:06 -0400

> Most definitly! That should have actually been:

Yeahh.......

So tell me again why we're worrying about the beauty of the first
few letters before the ":"?!

Leslie.

P.S.:  FWIW, I don't much care what the URI scheme is, I'm
just suggesting that a cnrp URI, by any other name, is going to
spell as (not) sweet...

--

Leslie Daigle
[email-masked]

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From: "Martin J. Duerst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 11:35:52 +0900

>Most definitly! That should have actually been:

No, definitely not. The a-umlaut is U+00e4 in Unicode, and this
translates into 0xC3 0xA4 in UTF-8. In addition, the correct
way to spell it is actually with a hyphen, not with a space.
And there is a second 'a' after the one with the Umlaut.
Please check http://www.pillsbury.com/brands/haagendazs.asp.

So the right thing would be to write

go:H%C3%A4agen-Dazs

Of course, the input field for the user should hide
encoding issues, and should allow to type in characters
directly, and should display them directly.

On the issue of prefix name, I don't really see that
'go' buys us much. The most difficult thing when introducing
a new URI is to make the browsers understand it.

What my daily-use browser does with something starting
with go:, for example, is the following:

1) Throw out the colon
2) Add 'http://www.' and '.com' to both sides of it and
    try to reach it.
3) If the domain name constructed abose doesn't exist,
    search for the result of 1) on a search site which
    depends on your language preference settings.

Other browsers that I just checked just says 'page not
found' or something similar.

So I don't think that using go: as a prefix to make it
easier to type this address will actually help that much.
URIs have traditionally been named after their protocol,
and 'tv' is actually no exception. It took an enormous
ammout of time and effort to discuss through the 'tv'
URI proposals to make sure that the scheme is really
able to address tv channels all over the world, and
not just some restricted (locally or otherwise) view
of television as we know it.

Regards,   Martin.

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From: Michael Mealling <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 09:00:15 -0400

> So the right thing would be to write

Hehe.... Ok. That means you got the $1000 question.... ;-)

> directly, and should display them directly.

Right...

>     depends on your language preference settings.

Actually, if its the browser I think it is then it does that with
any string it doesn't recognize as a registered URI scheme handler.
I.e. if you were to de-register the HTTP scheme (NOT recommended)
then any HTTP URI would do the same thing....

> found' or something similar.

Right. You don't have a protocol handler for them yet...

> easier to type this address will actually help that much.

It helps emmensely after you install a plugin that handles
that scheme. This also applies for URNs. They don't work until
you install a plugin (that I have that badly needs re-writing).

> of television as we know it.

Traditionally yes, but not required. The 'news:' scheme doesn't.
Its protocol is NNTP. "mailto:" would be "smtp:", etc.
Heck, even Tim says that naming the HTTP scheme after the protocol
was one of the mistakes he made with URIs...

-MM