[vox-tech] one of the most pernicious spams i've ever seen.

[Micah J. Cowan]

On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 06:58:59PM -0700, Michael Wenk wrote:
> On Thursday 25 September 2003 02:08 pm, Micah J. Cowan wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 25, 2003 at 11:07:39AM -0700, Michael J Wenk wrote:
> > >
> > > I referred to an RFC that desribes URIs, which I did at one time
> > > read(several years ago), or perhaps I read it in a book, I forget.  In
> > > any event, a URI is the identifier portion of the URL.  It tells you
> > > what resource you are trying to get, but not how to get it.  In simpler
> > > terms it would be everything to the right of the :// in URL.  I suggest
> > > you check the RFC I referenced, as I may be off a bit.
> >
> > Absolutely untrue, actually. As Mark said, URL is a subset of URI, not
> > vice versa. No part of a URL is a URI; all of a URL is always a URI. A
> > URI (Universal Resource Identifier) is a superset of URL (Universal
> > Resource Identifier), including one other type of identifier (which
> > can sometimes overlap URL), URN (Universal Resource Name). URNs are
> > beasts which refer to a resource by identifying them uniquely, not
> > (necessarily) specifying where they exist. There are several schemes
> > in existence, but most of them have yet to be put into practice. One
> > noticeable exception is "persistent URLs", which is a URL that is
> > expected to persist over time.
> >
> > The stuff to the left of the first ":" in a URI (URNs have 'em too) is
> > called the "scheme".
> 
> I stand corrected... Been a bloody long time since I have read the 
> documentation on exactly what a URI is vs a URL, and besides all that matters 
> is how you use it, unless you have to explain it to someone... 

Yeah, especially since the true difference, out in the wild, is
virtually none at all.

BTW, another RFC on the subject is 3305. The gigantic title:

      Report from the Joint W3C/IETF URI Planning Interest Group:
 Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), URLs, and Uniform Resource Names
              (URNs): Clarifications and Recommendations

Cya!
Micah