<META> overloading...

[Sean Conner]

It was thus said that the Great solderpunk once stated:
> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 03:10:30PM +0000, colecmac at protonmail.com wrote:
> > > I think we need to rule out the equivalent of
> > 
> > All existing clients rule this out, I don't see the issue. As long as
> > clients continue not to execute arbitrary Javascript, it should be fine.
> 
> The issue is that the history of the web demonstrates that the most
> powerful/inclusive interpretation of a spec tends to become the only
> acceptable implementation over a long enough timeline.  Everybody builds
> their content for that interpretation, and more conservative clients
> come to be considered "broken".  It's like trying to surf the modern web
> with cookies and JS turned off: nothing works.  


> The only hope is to
> design specs where the most powerful interpretation is within acceptable
> limits.  Which seems to me to be impossible in a world where URLs can be
> harmless pointers to network resources *or* arbitrarily large chunks of
> data of arbitrary but unamiguous type.

  I added the test for data: URIs for the lulz (it is, after all, a *client
torture* test), which the expectation that no one would really do anything
with it.  And the data itself is 'text/gamini' as a nice treat for anyone
that did anything with it.

  One way to think of data: is not to inline data, but as a pre-fetch of
data, but without the overhead of a second request.  Yes, it's silly, but it
is what it is.  Besides, as just a gut feeling, I think the majority (well
over 99%) of the links you'll find in the Geminisphere are:

	gemini:
	gopher:
	https:
	http:
	mailto:

  I have no numbers to back that up, but that feels right to me, and such
links as tel: or sip: will almost *never* show up (for the record, I haven't
come across tel: or sip: on the web in the wild [1]).

> But I really didn't want to just rely on politely asking people not to
> do certain things, but to make it impossible or very difficult to do
> them at the protocol level.  I know you can never *really* do that,
> people can ignore RFCs and implement totally broken stuff and the
> internet police don't come and arrest them.  But I had hoped we could
> get really close to that ideal.

  Creativity is amplified by restrictions, and oh boy is Gemini restrictive. 
So it's not surprising to me that people are poking and proding at the edges
to see what's possible.  I never realized that music consisting of the same
note was a thing until this video:

	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSuK_5zW2iM

or how about the restriction of using a single color for a painting?

	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-pdyTFOvYw

  Years ago, a friend sent me an email of only 26 words.  It was a coherent
message *where every word was in alphabetical order!*  I replied with
another 26 words, with a coherent message, but in *reverse alphabetical
order!*

  I mention these as a way to explain the recent activity in Gemini, as more
peoples' creativity has been unleashed by the contraints of Gemini.

  And always keep in mind, a polite "no" is always a viable answer.

  -spc

[1]	I do at work, but at work I deal with SIP, so tel: and sip: comes
	with that territory.