It may well have been a mistake for us to call what we were designing
Finally, I'll dispute, vigorously, your following statement:
> It would be contrary to the declared purpose of "uniformity" if
> you're going ahead with promoting the current drafts to Internet RFCs.
I know this is just a rhetorical device, but still, you should spare
us. First, there are three documents being circulated for "last call",
as far as I can tell, you've only called for delay on one of them.
Thus, "... if you're going ahead with promoting the current drafts..."
is at least inflationary. Secondly, the goal of publishing these
Informational RFCs is to give information to the Internet community,
many of whom are unaware of the work in the URI working group. The
document we intend to publish is the result of many many months of
debate and discussion, and it is *important* to release it as an
Request For Comments so that it will reach other memebers of the
community. You yourself pointed out that you only recently were made
aware of the discussion in our group. If you were to delay the
publication of the document on procedural grounds, you'd be
disenfranchising those other members of the community who read RFCs,
haven't been part of the URI group, but don't happen to see "last
call" documents as you did.
Almost all of the points you have raised have been discussed in great
detail at great length in the URI group previously. In addition, in
both private conversation and mail on this mailing list, most of your
points have already been addressed.
Norbert, I believe that you and the others who have been working on
XFN are in a position to add considerable value to the future design
and implementation of Internet naming and name resolution services,
and hope that you can concentrate your efforts in moving us forward.
Surely, the issues of "white space" and "case sensitivity" and "left
to right order" cannot be showstopper ones, without which no naming is
possible.
Let's move on.
Larry