Proposal (Was: When are and aren't two URLs the same?)

[Joaquin Miller]

>>How about the case when there are . or .. components in the 
>>absolute path part of an URL?
>>Including when those which are trailing without a slash.
>>E.g. Should http://example.org/users/joe and 
>>http://example.org/users/foo/../joe be the same?
>>What about http://alice.example.com/ vs http://alice.example.com/.
>
>Nothing should be done in that case.  Those pairs of URLs aren't the 
>same, even if some servers will provide the same content for 
>them.  Just because the path section of a URL looks like a Unix path 
>doesn't mean that it is or should be treated as a Unix path.

I very much agree with this.

We need a solid answer to the problem posed (for which real examples 
have already surfaced).  The two main candidates are the rewriting 
rules we are working on and the strict rule.  Rewriting may actually 
be more robust in practice, since URL changes may be going on in 
libraries, without implementers being aware of the changes.

But, if we decide to rewrite, we should be strict about that, 
too.  The rules for treating different URLs as equivalent should be 
based only on what comes from the standards. (Example: 80 is the 
default HTTP port, so http://alice.example.com/ is equivalent to 
http://alice.example.com:80/ but http://alice.example.com/   is NOT 
equivalent to http://alice.example.com/.  (You notice that Eudora has 
again decided that the period is not part of the URL.  That's a case 
that we need to keep in mind.))

Cordially, Joaquin

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