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

[pcg]

On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 05:30:02PM +0200, Mathieu Roy <address@hidden> wrote:
> > 4. The "short URL" does not really help in re-registration.
> 
> It does for a lot of people. If it does not for you, do not use it. It
> an extra, not a real feature.

Hmn... maybe we are talking about different things, but the "URL" you
are talking about surely does not work for anybody.

> 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.

> > 6. Either the mail-sending-script should be changed to generate
> > valid URLs, _or_ it shouldn't be claimed that a URL is following,
> > since that is confusing to users. If, what is between the
> > RERegistration lines, actually works with some browsers then it
> > would be better to specify these.
> 
> It something you normally can use.

If it "normally" works, could you tell me how this "normal" is to be
defined? Internet Explorer? It certainly doesn't work with a lot of free
browsers (like lynx). Most proxies and servers of course also do not allow
this URL, since it's technically impossible to parse it correctly, so, no,
you claim "it normally works" is myths, and tells me you didn't even think
about it.

> This is a claim that a wonderful URL is following, this is a little
> help for people who failed to register their project in first place.

Just that no working URL is following. Wether it's wonderful or not is not
my concern at all. A URL should work, wether wonderful or not.

> > Summary: My whole point is that the mail text claims that there is a
> > URL, but there isn't one (at least not a working one). _Something_
> > should be fixed: Either the text, or the URL.
> 
> Technically, there is a URL.

Yes, there is a short URL. But the mail obviously refers to the full text
between the "RERegistration" URL. And certainly that isn't a URL.

> The url works.

Please, if you don't know what URLs are, could you refer me to somebody
who actually has a clue? I mean, _somebody_ at savannah must know what a
URL is.

I mean, what kind of joke is this? I wrote an e-mail which cost me quite
a bit of time to tell the savannah people that there is a problem in the
mails they send.

Instead of "ok" or even "ok, thanks you" (which I didn't even expect), I
now get lots of e-mail (yours is the third) by people who don't even know
what a URL is but feel entitled to argue about this topic.

_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.

> 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?

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