Subject: [apps-discuss] Giving a user an HTTP URI

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 18:11:50 +0200

Hi all, I have the need to turn a local username at a host into an HTTP URI.

There are 3 cases:

1. User already has an HTTP URI ( e.g. https://graph.facebook.com/mark# )
-- easy, I just use that.

2. User has a profile document but no user URI ( e.g.
https://twitter.com/mark ) -- I have settled on a soution here, by adding
the #this keyword.

3. I know the local user name and host but do not know a profile URL.  e.g.
( mark / example.org ).  My proposal is to use the '.well-known' pattern
here and use the URL http:/example.org/.well-known/user/mark as the profile
document.

I cant think of anything better right now, any suggestions, or feedback on
(3) would we welcome!

Is it worth trying to register this pattern with IANA, or should that
follow implementations?

Thanks in advance!

---

From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 17:15:55 +0100

Do neither of acct: or webfinger apply here?​

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 18:28:31 +0200

> Do neither of acct: or webfinger apply here?​

1. acct: potentially applies here potentially, but I'm trying to model a
user and not an account, and also I'd like to use an HTTP URL.  So it's not
an ideal fit, but I thought about it.

2. re: webfinger I would to return HTML, rather than XRD, if the URL is
dereferenced, so again not an ideal fit.  It also doesnt tell me what value
I should put in as the subject to .well0known/webfinger?, which is the
problem I'm trying to solve in the first place.

---

From: Nat Sakimura <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 07:50:58 -0500

If it is OK, I would like to know more about your use case.
Expressing a user as a HTTP URL was the first vision of OpenID, which
proved to be a failure as users did not understand URL.
I suppose your use case is not to have the user type it, but something
else.

Nat

2014-10-21 11:28 GMT-05:00 Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>:

> _______________________________________________
> apps-discuss mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss
>
>

-- 
Nat Sakimura (=nat)
Chairman, OpenID Foundation
http://nat.sakimura.org/
@_nat_en

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 15:29:57 +0200

> If it is OK, I would like to know more about your use case.

Sure!

I'm working on a linked data system called 'marking'.  It's similar to a
facebook 'like', an upvote, a +1 etc.  The only difference is that not only
do you gain a reputation point ( a mark ) but you can pass it on to other
people.  Creating a potential virtuous circle.

When I want to mark someone of facebook at web scale, I know the URL to
send the mark to.  But I other systems it's less clear.

Recently an exchange has implemented marking in their chat box, and I have
access to the data which I would like to make searchable as a reputation
graph.

However the only data I have is the user name and the host, from that I
need to construct a sensible HTTP URI, that could later be dereferencable
(I hope!).

> proved to be a failure as users did not understand URL.

The jury is out on that one.  I think you are referring to memorable login
identifiers which is not my use case.  Looking at my screen right now, I
see a URL in the address bar of my browser.  That's more like my use case.

> I suppose your use case is not to have the user type it, but something

Yes, exactly.  Although I would not call that a use case, more a user
interaction.

---

From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 19:50:01 +0100

Hit the wrong reply - this should have gone to the list.

> problem I'm trying to solve in the first place.
Well, surely you start with acct:, which has the easy-to-understand form of
user@domain, and hand that to WebFinger to resolve to XRD, which in turn
gives you (via a link type you define) the HTML you want.

As for the HTML you want, you're not really describing that so I'm a bit
stumped.

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 21:15:15 +0200

On 22 October 2014 20:50, Dave Cridland <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Well, surely you start with acct:, which has the easy-to-understand form
> of user@domain, and hand that to WebFinger to resolve to XRD, which in
> turn gives you (via a link type you define) the HTML you want.
>

No, acct: wont work here.  Let me explain:

1. I am modelling a user and NOT an account, so this would be a misuse of
the term.  For my use case there is a very important distinction here, just
as a bank account is not the same as a bank user.

2. Even if acct: could be reused (it cant imho), I am looking for a well
known HTTP URI that denotes a user.  Why HTTP?  Because that's the protocol
of the web, and everything talks it.

I've had the following suggestions:

- http://user@host/ -- this passes the RFC and would be perfect, but guess
what?  Browsers fail on it.  Snowball's chance in hell getting the WHATWG
folks to fix it, imho.

- http://host/@user -- seems OK, but can you get people to agree, I doubt it

- http://host/@/user -- seems OK, but can you get people to agree, I doubt
it

 - http://host/~user -- seems OK, but can you get people to agree, I doubt
it

All that remains is the /well-known/ pattern.

It's already established that well-known is used when all else fails, and
has sub directories.

.well-known/user/mark

Well what else could it mean?  I think it's about as unambiguous as it
gets, no room for collisions.  It also gives me and other implementations a
standard way to construct an identifer and introspect on one.

If there's a better way I'd love to hear.

Absent of that, my question is: should I draft a registration template or
not?

---

From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 22:01:51 +0100

> as a bank account is not the same as a bank user.
I'm pretty sure this is either incorrect, or just a non-starter.

Incorrect, because for nearly every purpose, an account is essentially a
user.

A non-starter, because if you're actually after a URI mechanism to identify
natural persons, I suspect you're trying to do something badly wrong.

> of the web, and everything talks it.
OK. So "acct" is the wrong scheme because it's not an account you're trying
to identify (though I suspect it is, really - it's your case (1) in your
original mail), but "http" is OK, because although it's most certainly not
a scheme for identifying natural persons, it's "the protocol of the web".

> - http://user@host/ -- this passes the RFC and would be perfect, but
> guess what?  Browsers fail on it.  Snowball's chance in hell getting the
> WHATWG folks to fix it, imho.
>
>
I don't think that form means what you seem to think it means. The userinfo
portion of the authority relates to authorization identities.

> - http://host/@/user -- seems OK, but can you get people to agree, I
> doubt it
>
>  - http://host/~user -- seems OK, but can you get people to agree, I
> doubt it
>
>
No, you - more or less - cannot standardize paths of URIs.

You want acct:user@host - and resolve it with WebFInger and a link type if
you want something HTMLish.

> If there's a better way I'd love to hear.
Yes, there is.

You could use acct URIs to identify the user, and WebFinger top resolve
them, which is specifically designed for this case. You seem to want an
HTML resource - it's not clear why - so why not define a link type of
whatever it is you want?

Dave.

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 23:47:27 +0200

> Incorrect, because for nearly every purpose, an account is essentially a

An account is not a user.

>
> A non-starter, because if you're actually after a URI mechanism to
> identify natural persons, I suspect you're trying to do something badly
> wrong.
>

Respectfully, I disagree.

> OK. So "acct" is the wrong scheme because it's not an account you're
> trying to identify (though I suspect it is, really - it's your case (1) in
> your original mail), but "http" is OK, because although it's most certainly
> not a scheme for identifying natural persons, it's "the protocol of the
> web".
>

An HTTP URI can quite easily denote, point to, name a user.

> I don't think that form means what you seem to think it means. The
> userinfo portion of the authority relates to authorization identities.
>
>

You can, but it's an uphill battle, I think we are agreeing.

>
> You want acct:user@host - and resolve it with WebFInger and a link type
> if you want something HTMLish.
>

Hopefully I've explained a couple of times why the former is not
appropriate.  Additionally the only mandated serialization of WebFinger is
JRD, and that is impossible for me to work with, for example the predicates
are non standard and I am unable to associate more than one literal with an
object, it does not allow integers, let alone things like xsd:decimal which
I need, the list goes on and on.  It's a non starter, right now, maybe some
webfinger 2.0 would work, but not today.

Im unsure what you mean by using a link type and "HTMLish" -- is that a
thing?

> HTML resource - it's not clear why - so why not define a link type of

Thank you for the feedback, but your proposal would be both logically and
technically impossible for me to work with in its current form.  I hope
I've given some pointers as to why.

---

From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 09:10:24 +0100

On 22 October 2014 22:47, Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]> wrote:

>>> 1. I am modelling a user and NOT an account, so this would be a misuse
>>> of the term.  For my use case there is a very important distinction here,
>>> just as a bank account is not the same as a bank user.
>>>
>>>

In a pure and semantic sense, this is true. However, a user can be
described in only a very few mechanisms, none of which are universal.

Firstly, you can identify a user by one or more accounts. Given the sole
identifier on the internet is currently an account, this is by far the most
practical mechanism. You're welcome to worry over canonicalizing to a
single identifier; I suspect you'll find that most people will prefer
multiple identities in that sense. For basic canonicalization, WebFinger is
the thing to use.

Secondly, you could use some kind of national identifier. However, these
are neither universal (I live in the UK, for example, where we do not have
any form of mandatory ID card) nor homogeneous (national id card numbers
vary widely in form).

> Respectfully, I disagree.

You're allowed to disagree with me there; that was my opinion.

> An HTTP URI can quite easily denote, point to, name a user.

This, however, is opinion. Any URI can be used as an identifier, however
acct scheme URIs are the closest you'll get in semantic terms. You cannot
resolve any URI to a person, after all.

> You can, but it's an uphill battle, I think we are agreeing.

I think consensus is that imposing additional structure on the path is not
a path the IETF wishes to pursue, so "uphill battle" is an understatement.

> Im unsure what you mean by using a link type and "HTMLish" -- is that a

Sorry, by "link type" I meant "relation type". By "HTMLish", I meant that
you have previously made a requirement that the resource be resolvable to
some HTML, though in the paragraph above it seems to imply you need
something different.

1) Start with a URI. "acct" scheme URIs are good here.

2) Translate this to JRD via WebFinger. This gives you, amongst other
things, a "subject" - canonical URI, some "properties" - key/value string
pairs, and some "links", giving "rel" - the relation type - and an "href".

3) You register a relation type for your purposes, and then you have a
mechanism for discovering a URI you can resolve to the object you need, in
whatever format best suits your purpose.

I'd welcome an explanation of why this won't work, given it's very close to
what it was designed specifically for.

Dave.

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 12:57:46 +0200

> You're allowed to disagree with me there; that was my opinion.

Cool.  Thanks for sharing, it has been noted.

>
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> 2. Even if acct: could be reused (it cant imho), I am looking for a
>>>> well known HTTP URI that denotes a user.  Why HTTP?  Because that's the
>>>> protocol of the web, and everything talks it.
>>>>
>>>>

I understand your world view but I think you've misunderstood how the web
is supposed to work, or how it works.  I'll invite you to review the
original proposal form day 1 of the web.

http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html

You can see clearly that the design of the web was for HTTP URIs to denote
people, and here is a living example:

http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/card#i

I think if you wish to continue to debate this point, we are going badly
off topic, perhaps start another thread.

> a path the IETF wishes to pursue, so "uphill battle" is an understatement.

As said, I think we are agreeing.

> Sorry, by "link type" I meant "relation type".
>

Got it, but that doesnt help my use case.

> By "HTMLish", I meant that you have previously made a requirement that the
> resource be resolvable to some HTML, though in the paragraph above it seems
> to imply you need something different.
>

Got it.  Im not too set on a serialization, could be HTML or JSON LD or
turtle or any other W3C REC, I dont mind.  I think HTML is the lowest
barrier to entry for our partner sites tho.  JRD is a non starter.  Which
means WebFinger is a non starter.

> 1) Start with a URI. "acct" scheme URIs are good here.

No, it isnt.  I am looking for an HTTP URI.  Please read the original post
or at least the title.  May I request that you please stop repeating this
suggestion.

> pairs, and some "links", giving "rel" - the relation type - and an "href".

Please read my previous response.  This is an impossibility.  On top of my
other show stoppers, JRD requires a list of URIs to be ordered in terms of
preference, there's absolutely no way I can reliably comply to this
requirement.

> whatever format best suits your purpose.

 My purpose is to find an HTTP URI that denotes a user on our partner site,
which can be constructed from user and host key pair, in the absence of a
known profile page.  I have no idea what this has to do with a link
relation.  I am looking for an identifier not a relation.

>
> I'd welcome an explanation of why this won't work, given it's very close
> to what it was designed specifically for.
>

Please reread my previous responses.  If you can come up with solutions I'd
love to hear.  If you are just going to repeat your webfinger / JRD
recommendations, they have been noted.

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 13:24:50 +0200

> Got it, but that doesnt help my use case.

Is your use case a variant of "each user should have exactly one account on 
my service"?

I suggest using Facebook Connect instead of a new URI feature, BTW. 
Facebook works hard on identifying people (too hard for my taste). If you 
want to do the same you might as well leverage their work.

Arnt

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 13:33:42 +0200

On 23 October 2014 13:24, Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Is your use case a variant of "each user should have exactly one account
> on my service"?
>

My use case is that I have a global reputation database that covers many
sites on the web.  e.g. facebook, twitter, exchanges.

In my database I need a column that has a super key to each user.  Each key
much be an HTTP URI, that as best as possible denotes that user, for
facebook and twitter it's quite easy.  But some of our smaller sites it's
harder to construct such a URI, or find a reliable pattern to do so.

My contention is that it's hard to imaging /.well-known/user/mark ever
being used for anything other than a user profile page.  So why dont I just
do that.  I've had feeback that it looks 'ugly' but I dont have a better
choice at the moment.

> want to do the same you might as well leverage their work.

I use facebook connect and facebook open graph already, works really well.

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 13:50:59 +0200

On Thursday, October 23, 2014 1:33:42 PM CEST, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
> My use case is that I have a global reputation database that 
> covers many sites on the web.  e.g. facebook, twitter, 
> exchanges.

Oh. You don't say. As it happens, I've had a job that I don't want to 
influence my private reputation. I wouldn't even want you to find out where 
that was. You can find the email address I used for that work if you google 
for the right search terms, but I don't want you to connect that with me.

Arnt

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 13:54:16 +0200

> for the right search terms, but I don't want you to connect that with me.

Thanks that's a very good point.  But dont worry, our system is opt-in, so
we wont take your details, unless you choose so.  But I think this is off
topic regarding my original question.

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 14:21:32 +0200

On Thursday, October 23, 2014 1:54:16 PM CEST, Melvin Carvalho wrote:
> Thanks that's a very good point.  But dont worry, our system is 
> opt-in, so we wont take your details, unless you choose so.  But 
> I think this is off topic regarding my original question.

Not really off-topic, no... Users who don't want their various personae to 
be unified are _the_ reason why "acct:" exists and "user:" does not, so if 
you want "user:" this is the central problem to solve. The syntax is doable 
in five minutes afterwards.

Arnt

---

From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 13:49:51 +0100

> or at least the title.  May I request that you please stop repeating this

OK. So you start with a user and domain pair, arranged artfully into a
string conformant to a URI syntax.

> preference, there's absolutely no way I can reliably comply to this

Sure, but this is not the resource you're aiming for, this is a mechanism
to discover that resource across any service. It's just an intermediary.

>  My purpose is to find an HTTP URI that denotes a user on our partner
> site, which can be constructed from user and host key pair, in the absence
> of a known profile page.  I have no idea what this has to do with a link

Because you have a relation type defined as your user information page, and
you can then find a URI with this relation via WebFinger.

> Please reread my previous responses.  If you can come up with solutions
> I'd love to hear.  If you are just going to repeat your webfinger / JRD

I honestly think you're missing my point entirely. An example:

Start with user "bob" at domain "example.com". Let's assume your link
relation type is "http://webfinger.example/rel/profile-page".

The steps are:

1) HTTP GET request to http://example.com/.well-known/webfinger?
resource=acct%3Abob%40example.com&
rel=http%3A%2F%2Fwebfinger.example%2Frel%2Fprofile-page

2) This gives back an intermediate JRD resource:

{
       "subject" : "acct:[email-masked]",
       "aliases" :
       [
         "https://www.example.com/~bob/"
       ],
       "properties" :
       {
           "http://example.com/ns/role" : "employee"
       },
       "links" :
       [
         {
           "rel" : "http://webfinger.example/rel/profile-page",
           "href" : "https://www.example.com/~bob/"
         },
       ]

}

3) Your profile page URI is https://www.example.com/~bob/

Why doesn't this give you what you need?

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:02:44 +0200

On 23 October 2014 14:21, Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> Thanks that's a very good point.  But dont worry, our system is opt-in,
>> so we wont take your details, unless you choose so.  But I think this is
>> off topic regarding my original question.
>>
>

This is off topic, apart from being inaccurate.

Please read the *title* of this post, if not the content.

I am looking for an HTTP URI that denotes a user, that can be constructed
in a systematic way

This is not a post about privacy
This is not a post about alternate URI schemes to HTTP
This is not a post about how to denote users using URIs
This is not a post about dereferencing
This is not a post asking for help to solve my use case, I provided that
for context, as requested, some casual observations are welcome

All these topics are interesting, and comments are welcome in passing, but
it's not related my question, but please try and stay on topic, even if you
want to mention other items.

As I need to implement now, it seems as good a choice as any.  If there's
some informed opinions on this please do let me know.

As well-known was designed for introspection I think it's a safe bet to say
that /user/<username> is unlikely to be ever used for anything other than
denoting a user, therefore avoiding naming clashes and ensuring longevity

If anyone can answer my question as to the pros and cons of raising the
template with IANA now, or after implementation, I'd be grateful to hear.

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:06:56 +0200

On 23 October 2014 14:49, Dave Cridland <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> No, it isnt.  I am looking for an HTTP URI.  Please read the original
>> post or at least the title.  May I request that you please stop repeating
>> this suggestion.
>>
>>
>
>> Please read my previous response.  This is an impossibility.  On top of
>> my other show stoppers, JRD requires a list of URIs to be ordered in terms
>> of preference, there's absolutely no way I can reliably comply to this
>> requirement.
>>
>>
>
> Because you have a relation type defined as your user information page,
> and you can then find a URI with this relation via WebFinger.
>
>
>>
WebFinger is a dereferencing system.  I am not looking for a dereferencing
system, I am looking for an identification system.  I am looking for an
HTTP identification system because dereferencing is built in.  Only someone
quite insane or quite brilliant would use webfiger to dereference an HTTP
URI.  Hope that explains.

---

From: Arnt Gulbrandsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:17:17 +0200

What I'm trying to say is this: If a user isn't an account, then it needs 
to be something else, and that something else has to be defined. The IETF 
is a standards organzation, and standards organizations don't leave central 
terms undefined.

So how do you define a user, if it's not an account? "A set of accounts 
that claim to be the same", "a connected set of accounts for which there 
exist third-party claims of pairwise identity, with the meaning of identity 
defined by the third-party claimant", or something else?

Arnt

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:28:13 +0200

> defined by the third-party claimant", or something else?

Good question.  I would personally define a user the same way as facebook
do ( via open graph which gives first name, last name etc.) or similar to
schema.org Person or foaf person.  Not everyone feels the same way on that
definition, and the modelling can differ.  The account / user delineation
is a topic of discussion and in truth hard to define 100%.  However, I do
feel it would be incorrect to say user and account are the same thing
always.  In my case I am dealing with units of value so the difference to
me can be critical, just as a bank account is not the person that owns the
balance.

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:40:12 +0200

> is a standards organzation, and standards organizations don't leave central

BTW I'd be fairly confident that if you were to ask anyone outside of the
IETF (or maybe even inside) the term "user" would be much more common than
"account" in reference to the entities we are discussing.  Just my
opinion.

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:43:41 +0200

> userinfo portion of the authority relates to authorization identities.

I'd like to clear up a common misconception here:

The userinfo portion of a URI (per RFC3986 provides for such a format in
HTTP URLs:

The userinfo subcomponent may consist of a user name and, optionally,
scheme-specific information about how to gain authorization to access the
resource.

There's more in that spec and in the more recent httpbis that runs away
from the use of this userinfo URI component, but there is untapped value
here.

Additionally, the userinfo portion of the URL is mentioned in the WHATWG
URL spec as follows:

Userinfo must be a username, optionally followed by a ":" and a password.

http://userinfo.me/

---

From: Mikael Nordfeldth <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:46:01 +0200

I'll be brief and won't comment further within this thread. I think it's getting out of hand with repetitive arguments.

Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]> skrev: (23 oktober 2014 15:02:44 CEST)
>I am looking for an HTTP URI that denotes a user, that can be

I think it's pretty obvious by now that noone on this list has found/thought of/presented a standardised way of doing what you're asking about specifically.

My suggestion for your system is to simply define something yourself, keep it flexible and hope it gets to good use.

Apart from that, please note that not always is the best solution exactly what one was thought to be looking for. An acct URI may not be an http URI, but solves all problems this thread has been presented. Except being an HTTP URI (but acct can undoubtedly refer to http through for example webfinger lookup).

Lastly:
With specifically requiring an HTTP URI, you're ignoring a major part of the web moving to HTTPS, without a good negotiation procedure.

-- 
Mikael Nordfeldth
XMPP/mail: [email-masked]

---

From: Dave Cridland <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 14:54:02 +0100

> Userinfo must be a username, optionally followed by a ":" and a password.

You appreciate that the user here is being passed as the Authorization
identifier in a Basic auth header field, thus confirming precisely what I
said? (I love that the author of that page thinks that the colon shouldn't
be included in the header field, which is clearly incorrect).

I agree unreservedly that it's possible to misuse it in this way, however
to claim that my understanding is a "common misconception" is unsupported
by the specifications.

Dave.

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:54:26 +0200

On 23 October 2014 15:46, Mikael Nordfeldth <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I'll be brief and won't comment further within this thread. I think it's
> getting out of hand with repetitive arguments.
>

+1 thanks

> I think it's pretty obvious by now that noone on this list has
> found/thought of/presented a standardised way of doing what you're asking
> about specifically.
>
> My suggestion for your system is to simply define something yourself, keep
> it flexible and hope it gets to good use.
>

Agreed.  In that case although http://user@host is the correct thing to do
and follows the RFC, the browsers (sadly) do not.  So I'll go with

/.well-known/user/<username>

In IETF style I'll just ask if anyone could not live with that.

>
> Apart from that, please note that not always is the best solution exactly
> what one was thought to be looking for. An acct URI may not be an http URI,
> but solves all problems this thread has been presented. Except being an
> HTTP URI (but acct can undoubtedly refer to http through for example
> webfinger lookup).
>

Also agreed.  I did consider it but our data is not translatable to JRD so
would not be compatible with webfinger lookup, which would defeat the main
benefit, unfortunately.  Future versions of the spec may well work tho.

>
> Lastly:
> With specifically requiring an HTTP URI, you're ignoring a major part of
> the web moving to HTTPS, without a good negotiation procedure.
>

Yes a good point.  Always comes up at some point.  Thanks, I will consider.

No one answered my question about raising an IANA template, tho.  If
there's any guidance there, it's welcome.

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 15:57:02 +0200

> to claim that my understanding is a "common misconception" is unsupported

I didnt.  I will look that up, thank you.  If correct, perhaps a discussion
for another thread.  In any case, I cant use this pattern.

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 10:31:24 +0000

Hi,

re:
   https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/Lz6QHHAD19BCM2Onhizu5HMFUx0
   https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/aDpsrH5mgCmTZHIv-hJRcloTOuw

 > Hi all, I have the need to turn a local username at a host into an HTTP URI.

I'm not sure this is the best venue for this discussion.  Scanning ahead to some 
of the responses tends to reinforce this view.  It seems to me that many of the 
linked data ideas that you refer or allude to are not entirely common currency 
in the IETF community.  What you describe seems to me more like a *web* 
application, and as such I'd expect the relevant expertise to be more 
concentrated in W3C mailing lists (e.g. see below).  But you're active in W3C 
community, so I guess you already know of such forums.

FWIW, I have doubts that you'll find a single solution that will work at web 
scale, and would personally look to use a combination of available URIs, 
including acct:.  You mentioned in another message that you need a master http: 
URI in your database for each user.  I think for a system such as you describe 
to work at web scale, you'll need to deal at some level with aliasing of 
multiple URIs for a given user, which implies some kind of mapping between URIs 
(cf. http://sameas.org).  In some circumstances, you may need to mint your own 
(such as when all you have for a user is an acct: URI).

I can imagine a reasonable part of such a solution would be a .well-known 
registration along the lines you suggest, but that wouldn't be suitable for all 
host environments (e.g. those where applications don't completely control 
allocations in their domain URI space).

Just my 2c.

re:
   https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/apps-discuss/gPepJl9WU9HClkh6zcOCAQMjP3E

There are other communities who have addressed aspects of this problem; i.e. how 
to identify people separately from their current memberships or affiliations. 
One that comes to mind is ORCID, providing identifiers for academic researchers 
(http://orcid.org).  But this depends on an additional registration step with 
(yet) another registry, so as such is maybe just an example of XKCD on standards 
(http://xkcd.com/927/).

#g  (also: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0323-0093 :)
--

http://lists.w3.org - look for lists that mention "linked data" or "semantic 
web"; e.g.

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/semantic-web/ (this is where such
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lod/2014Oct/

http://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/data
http://www.w3.org/wiki/LinkedData
http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/WD-vocab-people-20120405/

---

From: Melvin Carvalho <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 12:18:14 +0100

On 27 October 2014 11:31, Graham Klyne <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I'm not sure this is the best venue for this discussion.  Scanning ahead
> to some of the responses tends to reinforce this view.  It seems to me that
> many of the linked data ideas that you refer or allude to are not entirely
> common currency in the IETF community.  What you describe seems to me more
> like a *web* application, and as such I'd expect the relevant expertise to
> be more concentrated in W3C mailing lists (e.g. see below).  But you're
> active in W3C community, so I guess you already know of such forums.
>

+1

I am familiar with the W3C work, however, and have discuses similar topics
at length.

However, I felt discussion of the using the .well-known pattern, and IANA
registry, may belong on the IETF list.  I hope this was not a bad
assumption.  Guidance very welcome, as ever.

>
> FWIW, I have doubts that you'll find a single solution that will work at
> web scale, and would personally look to use a combination of available
> URIs, including acct:.  You mentioned in another message that you need a
> master http: URI in your database for each user.  I think for a system such
> as you describe to work at web scale, you'll need to deal at some level
> with aliasing of multiple URIs for a given user, which implies some kind of
> mapping between URIs (cf. http://sameas.org).  In some circumstances, you
> may need to mint your own (such as when all you have for a user is an acct:
> URI).
>

+1

sameAs will likely come into play after the initial implementation, I was
more looking for a logical starting point.

> registration along the lines you suggest, but that wouldn't be suitable for
> all host environments (e.g. those where applications don't completely
> control allocations in their domain URI space).
>
> Just my 2c.
>

+1 totally agree, I think the resolution is to create an implementation,
and if it goes somewhere think about registration.

> There are other communities who have addressed aspects of this problem;
> i.e. how to identify people separately from their current memberships or
> affiliations. One that comes to mind is ORCID, providing identifiers for
> academic researchers (http://orcid.org).  But this depends on an
> additional registration step with (yet) another registry, so as such is
> maybe just an example of XKCD on standards (http://xkcd.com/927/).
>

Thanks, I will check!

> http://lists.w3.org - look for lists that mention "linked data" or
> "semantic web"; e.g.
>