RE: [xri] The case for being insensitive

From
Loren West <>
Date
2003-09-17T21:52:57+00:00
ID
001e01c37d69$13735730$6401a8c0@TABLETPC
Thread
RE: [xri] The case for being insensitive
Title: Message

Thank 
you for the editorial pass.  Do we have a name for the "manager of a 
namespace" (the entity responsible for running a namespace resolver)?  If 
not, how does "Resolution Authority" sound?

 

=Loren

  

  
-----Original Message-----
From: Wachob, Gabe 
  [mailto:] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 3:03 
  PM
To: 'Loren West'; Lindelsee, Mike; 
  
Subject: RE: [xri] The case for being 
  insensitive

  
+1

  
 

  
I 
  think Loren's understanding is reasonable and should be the approach of the 
  TC. 

  
 

  
Comments are removed for the purposes of equivalence & 
  normalization (this is my understanding - which I do not know we have 
  discussed) so the case sensitivity issue is not impacted here because case 
  sensitivity is a normalization/equivalence rule. The wording needs to be 
  explicit. This assumes we agree on the "comment" mechanism, which we have not 
  yet agreed to.

  
 

  
Little Quibbles:

  
We 
  have to be careful with the wording "manager of each namespace" - a concept 
  I'm not sure we've discussed before. This is a quibble - we can reword this in 
  the terminology and conceptual framework of the current spec.  Also the 
  "byte for byte" equivalence statement should probably be "character for 
  character after NFC normalization" (which I believe it is now). 
  

  
 

  
    -Gabe

  
    
-----Original Message-----
From: Loren West 
    [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 
    2003 1:46 PM
To: 'Lindelsee, Mike'; 
    
Subject: [xri] The case for being 
    insensitive

    
Hi TC'ers,

    
 

    
I 
    agree with Mike except for the comment portion of the XRI.  Maybe the 
    spec. should read:

    
 

    
Two XRIs are equivalent if the NON-COMMENT portions of the XRIs are 
    byte-for-byte equivalent.

    
 

    
That being the normative part of the spec.  At this point, some 
    people may mis-interpret the intent (as I did), so maybe a discussion of 
    case sensitivity in regards to resolution should follow 
    (non-normative):

    
 

    
During resolution, the manager of each namespace may have their own 
    rules for case sensitivity and equivalence in general.  
    One namespace owner might consider "Invoice" and "invoice" to be the 
    same for the purposes of resolution.  Another may consider "grey" and 
    "gray" to be the same.  Since you can't know that without invoking the 
    resolution process, they should be considered different XRIs 
    that happen to point to the same resource.

    
 

    
Obviously, this is a sensitive issue  :-)

    
 

    
=Loren 

    
      

      
-----Original Message-----
From: Lindelsee, 
      Mike [mailto:] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 
      2003 11:57 AM
To: 
Subject: 
      RE: [xri] Draft -07 feedback from another Visa person (responses 
      cont'd)

      
Hi All,

      
 

      
I'd like to follow up on the case-insensitivity 
      issue and mention what I see as a reasonable example that would argue 
      against case-insensitivity.  In my experience, the vast majority of 
      my accounts/login IDs on various systems are case sensitive.  Also, 
      in unix-based systems (and many others), most identifiers (anything 
      in the file system for sure) are case sensitive.  If any of 
      these identifiers are to be used in XRIs, the case-sensitivity 
      would need to be maintained, or ambiguity would be 
      introduced.

      
 

      
Between this issue and the Unicode issue, it 
      seems to me that it would be a bad idea to try to make any part of an XRI 
      case insensitive.

      
 

      
Mike

      
        
-----Original Message-----
From: Loren West 
        [mailto:]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 
        2003 11:36 AM
To: 'Dave McAlpin'; 'Sakimura, Nat'; 'Wachob, 
        Gabe'; 
Subject: RE: [xri] Draft -07 
        feedback from another Visa person (responses 
cont'd)

        
Case insensitivity is a form of normalization that a large 
        population of people receive benefit from.  If there's a way 
        to provide that benefit to those people without degrading functionality 
        where it doesn't make sense, then I think we should do 
        it.

        
 

        
I'd hate to see case insensitivity for ALPHA characters go 
        away.

        
 

        
=LOREN

        
 

        

        
-----Original Message-----
From: 
        Dave McAlpin [mailto:] 
Sent: 
        Thursday, September 04, 2003 11:06 AM
To: 'Sakimura, Nat'; 
        'Wachob, Gabe'; 
Subject: RE: [xri] 
        Draft -07 feedback from another Visa person (responses 
        cont'd)

        
          

          
So are we OK 
          with case-insensitive comparison for ALPHA characters in the authority 
          component, or should we drop this altogether?

          
 

          
-----Original 
          Message-----
From: 
          Sakimura, Nat [mailto:] 
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 
          2003 10:57 AM
To: 
          Dave McAlpin; Wachob, Gabe; 
Subject: RE: [xri] Draft -07 
          feedback from another Visa person (responses cont'd)

          
 

          
I do not 
          think that there is a good way of introducing “case insensitivity” to 
          Unicode in general. 

          
Case 
          insensitivity is a form of normalization, which is very problematic 
          for the international character set. IMHO, only meaningful form of 
          general equivalence is the bit to bit comparison or the comparison of 
          the resolved result from the same authority. 

          
 

          
Nat

          
 

          

          
-----Original 
          Message-----
From: 
          Dave McAlpin [mailto:] 
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 
          2:43 AM
To: 'Wachob, 
          Gabe'; 
Subject: RE: [xri] Draft -07 
          feedback from another Visa person (responses cont'd)