Microid mailing list

[Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter AT jabber.org>]

Evan Prodromou wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-28-11 at 13:25 -0700, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> 
>> As I understood things from Jer way back when, the point of a microid is
>> to form an association between me and you (where the URIs are stand-ins
>> for those entities).
> 
> If that were the case, then we'd associate two communication urls, so
> that evan AT prodromou.name and stpeter AT jabber.org were associated.\

We could do that, yes. I was using "you" and "me" metaphorically. But I
don't think we'd need a different microid for the following:

1. mailto:evan AT prodromou.net?subject=foo + stpeter AT jabber.org

vs.

1. mailto:evan AT prodromou.net?subject=bar + stpeter AT jabber.org

It's still all a relationship between evan AT prodromou.name and
stpeter AT jabber.org.

When we apply this to HTTP URLs, the relationship is (say) between
http://del.icio.us/ (the relevant authority for that domain) and
mailto:fred AT metalab.unc.edu -- the specific resources don't have any
affect on the fact that the relationship is between those two entities.

> But that's not what we do. We associate an identity with a _resource_,
> and resources have all kinds of URLs.

Do we? Is <mailto:evan AT prodromou.net?subject=foo> a different identity
from <mailto:evan AT prodromou.net?subject=bar>? I don't think so. Just as
(from the microid perspective) http://saint-andre.com/blog/ is owned and
controlled by the same entity that owns and controls another URL at that
domain.

> Now, for some kinds of Web services, there's only one resource on that
> service that I should be associated with. But there are many services
> that have more than one resource per user, and it doesn't make sense to
> limit it to just one.
> 
> Let's not hobble this extremely simple and elegant standard with any
> assumptions about the nature of domains and URLs.

Maybe you're right. But IMHO boiling things down to the authority
component simplifies things, actually.

>>  If I am http://saint-andre.com/ (which I own) and I
>> accept comments (which I don't), then a microid that mashes up that HTTP
>> URI and your mailto URI (or XMPP URI or whatever) can be used on any
>> page where you comment at my website.
> 
> That seems like a bad idea. Each comment should have a URL (probably
> just a <div> with an id attribute works), and each microid should match
> the identifier with exactly that URL.

I just don't see why. Your argument is that it should, but what are your
reasons?

>> http://www.saint-andre.com/blog/2006-01.html#2006-01-13T10:07
> 
> Har! Funny that the gentleman from Verisign thinks that domain
> registration is the basis of identity... Do you have a quote from Bob
> Parsons on the subject, too? ;-)

Call me old-fashioned, but IMHO there's a big difference between having
an email address of evan AT prodromou.name and evan.prodromou AT gmail.com.
When I use gmail, I'm at the mercy of Google. When I own the domain, I'm
at the mercy of ICANN and my ISP. Though maybe there's not that much of
a difference...

Peter

-- 
Peter Saint-Andre
Jabber Software Foundation
http://www.jabber.org/people/stpeter.shtml

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