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[SPEC-CHANGE] Simplified client certs, URI scheme, alt text

solderpunk solderpunk at SDF.ORG

Mon Jun 15 17:13:17 BST 2020

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Ahoy, Geminauts!

I have just made the proposed spec changes that I asked for comment onover the just past weekend official.

SUMMARY OF CHANGES: * A gemini:// URI scheme is formally defined for the first time, explicitly disallowing the use of the userinfo subcomponent of the authority component.* The client certificate system has been substantially simplified, with transient certificates no long a formally defined concept with prescribed behaviour.* A lightweight notion of alt text for pre-formatted content has been introduced as a tentative step toward fixing the worst search and accessibility related problems with pre-formatted non-textual content. No special structures or semantics for alt text are defined - if a convention for doing this organically arises in the community it may become a recommended best practice.* A few minor corrections and tidyups.

IMPLICATIONS FOR SERVER AUTHORS: Servers SHOULD return status 59 (BAD REQUEST) if they receive a requestfor a gemini:// URL containing a userinfo subcomponent. If you reallywant to be hyper-Postelian, you MAY instead strip out the userinfo sothat, for example, it does not end up in logs, is not passed to CGIapps, etc. IMPLICATIONS FOR CLIENT AUTHORS: Clients should either refuse to follow gemini:// links with userinfosubcomponents, or should strip out the userinfo before following thelink.

Clients with support for client certificates should adapt to the newsimplified specification, which may involve e.g. removing support forthe deprecated status code 21.

Clients may do something with alt text. This is probably most relevantto search engines and accessibility-focussed clients, but I suppose e.g.graphical clients may wish to support web browser style hover overdisplay. Strictly optional in all cases. IMPLICATIONS FOR CONTENT AUTHORS:

If you have authored content which includes gemini:// links withuserinfo subcomponents, you MUST remove the userinfo.

You may wish to add alt text to preformatted content which is notmeaningfully screen readable or search engine indexable.

Cheers,Solderpunk