> If the author has said explcitly "Here is where to find
> this thing" then the system should not waste time trying to indirect it at
> the source of the reference (in the processor) though it might do so at
> the target of the reference (in the filesystem, at the HTTP server, etc.).
Sometimes, however, the user of the document knows better than the
author. For example, a downloaded document with relative links can
benefit from an *ad hoc* catalog that expands them. Similarly,
a *pro forma* SystemId on an overworked server may be usefully
converted to a local cached copy.
> In other words, I think that the SYSTEM declaration in SOCAT is probably a
> bad idea.
I take a more limited view: "Avoid SYSTEM entries in publicly available
catalogs."
-- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org e'osai ko sarji la lojban.