Re: Local program exection in WWW browsers

Larry Masinter (masinter@parc.xerox.com)
Thu, 14 Apr 1994 00:35:33 PDT


> Given that the URL working
> group has decided that you don't even want to reference local
> files, I suspect the best that x-exec: can hope for is de facto
> standardization.

Wait, wait, wait...

I think the *HTML* standard can have in it what it's willing to
include in a HREF or IMG SRC=; e.g.,

in that standard, you can say that you allow

<A HREF="reference" ...>

where a "reference" is either a:
URL
local file designator
exec link
relative URL-like-thing

etc.

Not all things that might appear in a *HTML* standard as 'allowable in
a link' should appear in the *URL* standard.

In particular, applications that require *URL*s but can't deal with
'exec links' and other things might be archie-like-things, resource
discovery programs, internet directory services, etc.

Just because it isn't in the URL standard and looks like a URL doesn't
mean you can't standardize it.