RE: [xri] Version Control Commit by blade

[Eran Hammer-Lahav <eran@hueniverse.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Will Norris [mailto:will@willnorris.com]
> Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2009 11:47 AM
> To: xri@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: Re: [xri] Version Control Commit by blade
> 
> not sure which commit these were actually on, but i have two
> comments.  You modified Section 2.4.1 to read:
> 
> > The one distinction is that link relationships described by the
> > <Link> element are between the resource described by the XRD (the
> > context resource) and the linked resources (the target resources),
> > and not between the XRD document itself and the linked resource.
> 
> The addition here are the two parenthetical statements, "context
> resource" and "target resource".  Both of these are new terms that are
> not present anywhere else in the spec.  Some time ago we did away with
> the term "target resource" in favor of "linked resource".  We also
> consistently use the phrase "resource described by the XRD" throughout
> the spec.  It is a mouthful, and I'm not terribly fond of it, but it
> is accurate and the best we could come up with.  I don't disagree that
> this sentence can be a little confusing with all the "resources" being
> thrown about, but I'm concerned about throwing in new terminology here
> that isn't at all consistent with the rest of the spec.

It is how the HTTP-Link spec defines typed links... It might be a good idea to borrow a bit of that language here to make it easy for those familiar with the link framework.

> You added the following paragraph to the end of Section 2.5.1:
> 
> > New relation types between resources must follow the extensibility
> > and registration requirements defined in [HTTP Link Header].
> 
> While I don't disagree with this, I'm curious if it's necessary.  The
> whole reason link-header had to create a registry is because it is
> using tokens for registered values, and only using URIs for extended
> values.  XRD is specifically using URIs only, so we don't really care
> about the token values.  The universal rule of URIs is that you don't
> make up new URIs in namespaces you don't own.  That would imply that
> you can't make up a new relationship in the
> "http://www.iana.org/assignment/relation
> " unless you've properly registered it.  Now, I do like having some
> kind of reference because it instructs publishers how to format those
> token values as URIs, but the wording of the above paragraph seems out
> of place, given how XRD uses these values.

We are not using just URIs. Note we don't have any requirement for absolute URIs for <Rel>. A 'describedby' rel type is perfectly valid. I think it is important to point out to developers that if they want to create new relation types, they should consult the link spec for directions and guidelines on when to mint a short name and when a URI extension.

EHL