Re: Warning: header, need origin

Koen writes:
> 
> If "caching may violate law" is supposed to handle this case only, it
> needs rewording.  In this case, "caching may violate law" is best
> defined as an _explanatory message_ accompanying a "Cache-control:
> no-cache" response header.

I think this solution is taking us down the right road. I suggest,
however, that we go further and replace the "caching may violate law"
warning with "Customizable Warning" which can accompany an object and
the text of which is totally up to the information provider.

I have been having increasing misgivings about including the "caching
may violate law" warning, and I took the step this morning of
discussing the matter with a lawyer who has considerable experience
with legal warnings (in the context of product liability).  His
description makes me believe that our inclusion of this warning in the
base protocol is a bad idea.  As he explained it, there are two
reasons in American law why it might get us in trouble:

1) The inclusion of a set of warnings with a product may create an
inference that the absence of a warning about a (different) given
hazard means that it is not a hazard.  In other words, if someone
warns that caching an object may violate a law but fails to warn that
transmitting it may violate a law, the user may sue that someone for a
failure to warn.  (Interestingly, if that someone gives no warning
about that class of hazard, such an inference cannot be drawn.  Other
duties to warn usually interfere with the strategy of just leaving the
warnings off.)

In order to deal with this principle, those who want a "may violate
the law" warning for caching could well need additional warnings
associated with other things (like, say, the entire POST method).  If
we allow for a "Customizable Warning", they can do that without having
to create a new Warning for each one.

2) If you assume a duty, you have a duty to do it right.  We, as a
working group, have no current duty to deal with legal warnings; if we
take up that duty, however, we have a (legally enforceable) duty to do
it right.

I believe we can create a "Customizable Warning" without taking up any
specific duty, but I fear that if we include a specific legal warning
that we have by implication taken up the duty to legal warnings right.
I do not think we have the skill, experience, or time to do that.

				Regards,
					Ted Hardie

Received on Wednesday, 3 April 1996 21:37:09 UTC