Anyway, I guess the question I need answered is, "how is it supposed to work?" @nigelkersten broke open-uri-compatible URLs in 2009 with commit 50e0f3d0161bc4160e36a93d15fba53302b8727b, and no one has complained yet, so apparently it's not a huge deal?? Maybe we could reduce the surface area and just yank the remaining shreds.