Re: [Savannah-hackers] address@hidden: virtual hostnames for gnu projects]

[Ron Peterson]

On Mon, Feb 04, 2002 at 10:23:43PM +0000, Jaime E. Villate wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 03, 2002 at 10:51:51PM -0500, Ron Peterson wrote:

> > > How should project html files construct URL's?  Say project FOO has
> > > FOO.html, and FOO-credits.html.  How should FOO.html refer to
> > > FOO-credits.html?  A relative URL would work, in both cases, but that
> > > is not the current gnu.org convention.  And how should FOO.html refer to
> > > BAR.html, belonging to project BAR?
> 
> I've never understood the current policy of using absolute links in
> www.gnu.org pages.

I don't really understand this policy myself.  (History lesson,
anyone?)  However, even if we were to change our views regarding
relative links, we still have issues to resolve with the virtual
project hostnames.

In fact, introducing virtual project hostnames pretty much mandates
that we use absolute paths when linking from project pages to
non-project pages.

The question then becomes: how should project web pages other project
webpages within the same project?  If I go to FOO.gnu.org, should I
reasonably expect to remain in FOO.gnu.org?  Or is it o.k. to bounce
over to www.gnu.org/software/FOO?  Or vice versa.

I guess if I ruled the world, I'd advocate the latter - and I'd make
www.gnu.org/software/FOO the canonical project site.  I would only put
the project homepage on FOO.gnu.org.  I'd choose
www.gnu.org/software/FOO to be canonical because it was there first,
so there are probably links to project pages from all over the place.

We could also use relative links when a project refers to another page
within the same project.  This seems more complicated, but I guess
there's an educational component to all of this in either case.

To sum:

Are relative links o.k. sometimes?

If so, which method should be preferred?

If so, should we use them within a project to maintain parity between
FOO.gnu.org, and www.gnu.org/software/FOO?

-- 
Ron Peterson             -o)
address@hidden           /\\
GNU Webmaster           _\_v
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