At any rate, that doesn't explain not using URI in the JDK 1.6 library.
In the implementation, we do check that String URIs are valid URIs using the java.net.URI class. That's why Ling's example causes an exception.
I'm not disagreeing that it would be better to use URIs instead of Strings. At the time the JSR 105 API was designed, the consensus of the expert group was that it was still very important to support JDK 1.2/1.3. Adding API support for URIs is an API change, and also requires dropping support for JDK 1.3 and below. That may be possible or acceptable, but we would need to do it in a maintenance revision of the JSR 105 API via the JCP standard process. I'll certainly keep that change in mind if and when we do a maintenance revision.
--Sean
