Friends,

As discussed at http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=55.msg23464#msg23464, Bitcoin needs a URI scheme.

<PROPOSAL:>

I propose that Bitcoin's URI scheme be "bitcoin". I also propose that this matter be left open through the end of 2010 for comments and discussion.

</PROPOSAL>

Background:

A "URI scheme" is an extremely simple thing. RFC 3986 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#page-17) defines a URI Scheme in ABNF as

scheme      = ALPHA *( ALPHA / DIGIT / "+" / "-" / "." )

IANA maintains the official registry of (officially registered) URI schemes. The current list is at http://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes.html.

BCP35 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/bcp35) lays out the criteria and process for officially registering a URI scheme with IANA. I'll cheer the day when that happens. Meanwhile, looking at the IANA registry of current official URI schemes (http://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes.html) immediately shows that there are many familiar ones in widespread use that are not "officially registered", such as magnet:, ed2k: skype:, callto:, aim:, freenet: and so on.

So... 8 years ago some bittorrent folks came up with the magnet: URI scheme.
And yet I don't run across many magnet links as I browse the web.

As I browse the web I run into exactly three URI schemes:  http, https, and mailto.

I think a bitcoin mime type will be easier to implement and is likely to be more successful.

I agree that those three URI schemes are very popular, but I do run into magnet links all the time on torrent sites.  And all major torrent software does support magnet links.

@AdrianAtari: Yes, we should be discussing how Bitcoin handles the URI scheme. But that's a separate discussion

@Gavin: I don't see the sense of a Bitcoin MIME type. A URI scheme describes a resource. A MIME type binds a document type to a handler. Implementing a "click to send Bitcoins" capability using a MIME type would require that the website on which the payment link was embedded send a new document to the client browser. Seems needlessly complicated to me.

See also the discussion at http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1840.msg24927#msg24927 for how to register URI scheme handlers, at least on Windows systems.

From the previous thread:

Implementing something that won't even work on our own forums would be a bad idea, in my humble opinion.

Questions.

1.  Why not have both?   The market will decide which one people choose to use most.  One might be used more at first, then later as browsers are updated, site owners might later switch to the other.   But....  Are they mutually exclusive??

2.  What's stopping us?   Let's just implement them BOTH immediately.   We obviously have the knowledge and expertise to get the job done.   Let's just get the job done already.

Gavin and Mike...   You've both already done lots of research and put lots of thought into each of the two methods.    What more would it take to simply implement them?   Is it simply a matter of agreeing on what it should look like, how it should function, etc...  then create the standard...   then submit it to...?    What's the roadblock at this point -- with each of the methods, if there is one?

I vote yes to a Bitcoin URI. The only reservation I have is a minor one: are we sure that this economic system will be called "bitcoin" forever? IMHO, for that reason alone a more generic (like "payto:", similar to "mailto:") or for that matter a more obscure (like "x-btc:") URI name would be better.

The MIME type idea is good. Not for describing payment addresses; for that, a MIME type is quite a crappy idea indeed, and a URI scheme is more suitable. But eventually, we will want to develop a simple scripting language for recurring payments (see my other post), and that would benefit from having its very own MIME type.

So wouldn't it be better to have a more generic name on a generic identifier?