Re: Torbutton 1.3.0-alpha: Community Edition!

[Drake Wilson <drake@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Quoth Mike Perry <mikeperry@xxxxxxxxxx>, on 2010-10-01 18:51:07 -0700:
> Intuition also tells me that tor:// and tors:// urls will be easier to
> use, understand, and remember by the general public.. Can you give
> some examples/reasons why just using these schemes actually prevents
> us from doing this scheme layering idea for other protocols in the
> future (when it is supported)? In otherwords, why can't we just do both?

It doesn't inherently do that, but it leaves a very bad taste in my
mouth.  If the HTTP form is that much shorter, now it's implicitly the
first-class one: it gets the premium name that people will actually
use, and every other protocol is stuck with the leftovers.  This is
the same layer violation, just enforced fuzzily by hordes of humans
acting on their baseline psychology instead of by software, so I still
consider it pollution of the URI space: it's supposed to be Universal
Resource Identifiers, not A Pup Called HTTP.

Other possible points, all somewhat weak in isolation:

  - There are potential future uses of the "tor:" schema that would be
    more generic to Tor as a whole, such as URI references for relays.
    Imagine registering a schema with a QR code reader for more
    conveniently transmitting a bridge descriptor on paper.

  - The schema doesn't make it clear what protocol is actually in use.
    If I've never seen one of these before, I have to guess what that
    URI actually means, as opposed to it being a clear variant on the
    underlying HTTP URI.

The fuzzy URI-matching you mentioned is something I hadn't considered,
and is an unfortunate practical constraint in this case.  That would
lead me to consider, say, prefixing schemas with "or" instead, to keep
the whole thing alphabetic.  orhttp:, orhttps:, orirc:, ... ?

(I can say on a personal level that I am hardly unbiased, and that I
will refuse to accept or produce tor: URIs if non-HTTP protocols get
the short/long end of the stick/schema, not that that particularly
matters.)

   ---> Drake Wilson
***********************************************************************
To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx with
unsubscribe or-talk    in the body. http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/