From: mitra@path.net (Mitra)
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:02:13 PST
In-Reply-To: John Curran <jcurran@nic.near.net>
To: jcurran@nic.near.net
Subject: Re: Thumbnail Sketch of the UR* Arena
Message-Id: <9310271002.aa15289@pandora.sf.ca.us>
John Curran sez...
} The act of encoding meta-information will either require us to specify
} the "appropriate" metainformation for URLs vs URNs vs URx's, or will
} require that we allow arbitrary metainformation elements at any level.
} The former is very difficult to reach agreement on [reader exercise:
} where does resource _type_ go? how about _cost_?] and the latter requires
} that we fully specify how unknown metainformaton types are handled.
} Either way, this is a non-trivial task, and one which requires serious
} consensus building.
I strongly recommend the latter approach, at this level I think we need
to know how to pass meta-information to a resolver, and how to
understand the results. We are going to have to allow for
different kinds of meta-information to be added as things develop. Once
we've defined how to pass these things around, and added already
standardised fields (such as type & character-set) then we can start work
on standardizing other fields (like a format for Author). I believe
this is what the non-existant Element Types WG is working on.
- Mitra