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[Savannah-hackers] Re: Invalid URL in registration response


From: Mathieu Roy
Subject: [Savannah-hackers] Re: Invalid URL in registration response
Date: 13 May 2003 22:11:15 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2

> > It's not short URL + lots of garbage, is short URL + ?value= your
> > previous description (what you call lots of garbage)
> 
> Well, if you insist that this is a URL then it's bad, since the rest of
> the world certainly has a different idea of URLs, which is defined by
> RFC 1738.
> 
> If you really insist on your definition, _please_ call it something
> else.
> 
> I think especially a site like savannah (gnu.org!) should not invent their
> own proprietary versions of open standards (proprietary because it's not
> published anywhere).
> 
> Even worse is that nobody at savannah seems to even know what a URL is,
> but many feel entitled to dismiss the problem. That's not at all how the
> image of anything under gnu.org should look like.

So defining a $variable is creating a "proprietary version"?

I assume that you are using "a proprietary version of open standard"
with your mailer. 
Because you email address (<pcg(Marc)@goof(A.).(Lehmann )com>) is
clearly not a standard address. My mailer, gnus, does not understand
it and I have to copy/past your address from your signature to reply. 

But let it end on this, address@hidden is not a place for
flamewar. 

[...] 

> _Please_ first _read_ and try to _understand_ my mail before you argue.
> Or at least let other people answre who _do_ have a clue of what they are
> talking about.

You said a URL does not work. It does. 
That's a fact. Type any of these urls, the worst you can get is the
content after ?something= to be ignored. Which does not broke the
system. 


 
> > And with many free software browser, variables included along this
> > url are correctly interpreted.
> 
> Please, again, you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.  You
> talk about a string that (among other syntactic problems, this is not the
> only one), contains spaces, which is an illegal character in a URL.
> 
> It's not a URL, I told you, you can certainly verify this (I don't think
> that URLs are extremely difficult beasts, so you should really be able to
> understand why it's not a URL).
> 
> So... until you verified this, falsified me, or learned what a URL is (the
> whole topic), you should really abstain from any mails or discussion on
> that topic.
> 
> I really wonder what kind of people are there at gnu.org. It once was a
> place where free software was praised. Now it's a place where people argue
> that proprietary and undocumented URL extensions should be used.
> 
> > registration process still works completely. The URL is still working.
> 
> Repeating falsities does not make them right. Please, isn't there anybody
> at savannah who knows what a URL is?

This URL, Uniform Resource Locator, is something that was added in 2
minutes to save time for  users that have to reregister a project
because they missed something during the registration process. It
fills automatically some information. 

This is clearly not an essential thing. This is clearly not a "URL
extension", it's just a non-cleanly formatted url provided
just-in-case. If it does not work with a browser (it does not with
most free software browsers, actually), you'll just have to refill
forms.

More complex implementation would require more time and since it's
absolutely not essential, it would surely not be done. 

What do you want: to remove a feature that works for many persons?
We wrote in this mail you talk about:

        "Some users find it useful to use the big re-registration URL
        provided in the acknowledgment e-mail you received after
        registration." 

It clearly shows that we know that this URL is pretty weird (the
_big_). But that's just something some people find useful. If it does
not work, it's not horrible. 

We have more complex issues to deal with, for instance sftp support,
which is asked by about 50 users. So enhancing this URL is clearly not
to me something important right now. 

That said, Savannah is a project. You can contribute if you want
to. If you feel it's really something that need to be changed, send us
a patch, we'll apply it. That's how free software work. 

If you do not have time either to write a patch, you can fill a bug
report http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs?group=savannah

It's usually more appreciated when you're spend more than 10 hours on
a free software project to get request that say "this does not work
for me, I would like it to work that way" instead of "this is not an
URL, this is awful, this proprietary".

The fact that a software fails to perform correctly on some conditions, or
in some systems, or fails to comply current policy documents is a
bug. It does not make of the software a proprietary one.








-- 
Mathieu Roy
 
  Homepage:
    http://yeupou.coleumes.org
  Not a native english speaker: 
    http://stock.coleumes.org/doc.php?i=/misc-files/flawed-english




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