markdown-rel-links

# `markdown-rel-links`

All URLs in the page are relative.

## Examples

    error[markdown-rel-links]: non-relative link or image
      |
    5 | https://example.com/
      |

## Explanation

`markdown-rel-links` reports any non-relative (eg. absolute or protocol-relative) hyperlinks or images in proposals, with exceptions defined in EIP-1.

Proposals cannot contain external links for several reasons. First and foremost is that external links can disappear, move, or otherwise suffer from link rot. Final proposals provide a guarantee of immutability, and updating final proposals to update links would undermine that guarantee.

In a similar vein, an external resource (referred to by a non-relative URL) can change independently of the EIP process, which would also undermine the immutability guarantee.

Finally, there is also the question of copyright, access fees, and general availability. Proposals are licensed under CC0-1.0 so that anyone is free to use them for whatever purpose. Content published outside the EIPs repository is likely not licensed under the same terms. Publishers may even charge a fee for access!