Using netcat with gemini (was Re: A question regarding the spec)

[Philip Linde]

On Wed, 28 Oct 2020 12:04:28 -0400
"Chris Vittal" <chris at vittal.dev> wrote:

> A properly formed gemini request is a fully qualified URL with a scheme
> and authority.

Not in this case. In a request, it is only necessary to specify the
authority and optionally a path. From the spec (0.14.2):

> If the scheme of the URL is not specified, a scheme of gemini:// is
> implied.

So the server really should treat both requests as equivalent.

Furthermore, I think it's wrong of the server not to serve the same
resource for "gemini.circumlunar.space" and "gemini.circumlunar.space/".
The spec says that the URI is syntactically compatible with the generic
URI syntax except that the userinfo subcomponent of the generic
authority is not allowed. Serving different content for "/" and
unspecified path is another difference from the generic URI syntax that
is not specified. RFC 3986:

> In general, a URI that uses the generic syntax for authority with an
> empty path should be normalized to a path of "/".

This is a should and not a must, but I also think it's bad behavior
practically to force a client to make another request for something
that should really be an implementation detail in the server. I also
don't see any practical reasons one might want to distinguish the two.

-- 
Philip
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