Re: How to add new "protocols" ?

> > Future extension of HTTP might well have to deal with data (e.g. audio,
> > video streams) where reliability is not such an issue, and QoS might be
> > negotiated (e.g. "I need that gaps in the received video are not longer
> > than 5 frames"). Then, the body would not even need a reliable
> > transport.

You are certainly right, I started writing the above paragraph with 
something like "Going to the extreme, " then I edited it out.

...
  
> I don't think it was intended to run on top of all transports,
> and I don't think it should try to be the universal protocol
> for all proposes. It seems quite reasonable to define a new URL
> scheme for audio or video streams rather than overload http:

You see, the problem is that protocols (either at user or network
level) tend to become "de facto" standards when they are successful,
and then you are stuck with them. So it was for TCP (and we are
discussing now whether http is over TCP only rather than Decnet only),
so it might be for http. And, just as a practical issue, I don't think
you can instruct your favourite browser to digest and pass to a proxy a
request for, say, xytp://host/file.

Finally, why should one go through the effort of reinventing the
various issues (content negotiation, caching, etc.) which HTTP
already deals with in what I believe a very flexible and satisfactory
way ?

	Luigi
-----------------------------+--------------------------------------
Luigi Rizzo                  |  Dip. di Ingegneria dell'Informazione
email: luigi@iet.unipi.it    |  Universita' di Pisa
tel: +39-50-568533           |  via Diotisalvi 2, 56126 PISA (Italy)
fax: +39-50-568522           |  http://www.iet.unipi.it/~luigi/
_____________________________|______________________________________

Received on Tuesday, 18 February 1997 14:11:10 UTC