Re: "file:" URLs?

[Brian Stafford <brian stafford uklinux net>]

On Sun, 19 August 22:31 Albrecht Dreß wrote:

> Not everything covered by the RFC's must go into a MUA. I also decided not to

Agreed.  However, all normative requirements *must* be implemented otherwise
interoperability is compromised.  In any case, highlighted URLs is an ad-hoc
feature not described in any RFC, so you can implement as much or as little
as is desired.  I think the functionality as it stands is about right.

> support gopher: and telnet: URI's as I think they don't make sense. Gopher is
> (more or less, at least) a thing of the past (and I don't know any program
> which supports it). And telnet is nothing more than a security risk, which is
> disabled on any proper administrated UN*X box.

Well, that's a little unfair on telnet.  The STARTTLS command is defined
for telnet.  A properly configured server will implement it and refuse
to continue without negotiating the TLS connection.  This avoids the need
for extra ports etc and preserves the huge raft of options and functionality
that telnet provides.  The blame belongs with the implementation, not the
protocol.

> Maybe, later, ssh will be in the RFC's...

IIRC, there is an effort under way to do just this.

Brian