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Missing stuff in the Gemini specification

Last update on 28 february 2021.

This is a personal list of the things that, in my opinion, are missing or unclear in the Gemini specification. It helps me to follow the discussions and to be sure everything was addressed. They are roughly in order of decreasing importance (yes, that's subjective).

What to do with IRI, the URI in Unicode (including IDN, domain names in Unicode)

Detailed discussion

TOFU

This is probably the worst part of the current specification, there are many other clarifications requested:

Issue #5 in the specification work

A registered scheme for Gemini URIs

Detailed discussion

A registration for the gemtext media type

(Media types are commonly named MIME types.) Registering text/gemini:

The IANA registry for media types

RFC 6838, on media types registration

Issue #11 in the specification work

A registration for the Gemini port

The IANA registry for port numbers (warning, huge file)

RFC 6335, on port numbers (and service names) registration

Big problem: 1965 is taken

1965 is currently registered for the "tivoli-npm" service. It appears to be long forgotten. The contact is Ivana Cuozzo, but the email address bounces (2021-03-01, the Tivoli company stopped many years ago). IANA was contacted about this issue (ticket [IANA #1190212]) but offered no practical way to de-assign (sections 8.2 and 8.4 of the RFC) the port.

Her former email address

A new Gemini port?

The IANA form to request a port

Issue #16 in the specification work

A formal grammar for the protocol and the text

Currently, the syntax of the header response and of gemtext is specified mostly in natural language, which create ambiguities (for instance, is an end-of-line required at the last line of a page?). We should use a formal language, such as ABNF.

RFC 5234 on ABNF

Issue #7 on the specification work

Empty paths in URI

Is an empty path equivalent to a single slash? Practically, is gemini://example.org equivalent to gemini://example.org/ and can a client canonicalize the former to the later? RFC 3986 says "In general, a URI that uses the generic syntax for authority with an empty path should be normalized to a path of '/' " (HTTP does it) but it is not said in Gemini specification.

Issue #2 in the specification work

URI fragments when there is a redirection

Detailed discussion

Semantics of fragments in Gemini text

Detailed discussion

Other lists of problems in the specification

Adnan Maolood's list