In my perceived role as master of stating the bleeding obvious, I'd just like to point out that a URI is for "identifying an abstract or physical resource", and doesn't mandate the actual location or means of reaching said resource:
- When a browser does a GET on http://blog.whatfettle.com, does it open a socket to port 80 on the IP address resolved by the DNS address blog.whatfettle.com. Probably not if you're behind a firewall.
- If your browser requests http://google.co.uk from http://google.com, will it get the page it expected? Possibly.
- If I "telnet localhost 80" and type "POST mailto:santa@northpole.org HTTP/1.0^M", will my message get through? Maybe, or at least according to Mark
- Oh, and when I give Amazon my home address, do I care which courier they use? Not really.
Of course all that ignores how you know where and how to switch protocols or locations. Let's just say that's a simple matter of configuration.
Note that I've also neatly ignored the whole "what is a resource" debate: a dog or a picture of a dog? As everyone on the WS-Addr WG now knows, a URI points to a Resource, and a resource is something identified by a URI, right?
Update: i composed this during the WS-Addressing telcon last night, about the same time Noah raised this new TAG issue.