Re: Implications of introducing new scheme and port for exis

>     I would agree with Josh Cohen and David Morris that introducing a new
>     URL scheme will affect proxies and is a bad idea. I also agree with
>     David Morris that a new HTTP scheme should be avoided for the same
>     reasons.
>
>     Using a new default port is okay. The stuff about firewalls being
>     affected is true to the extent that they also had to be opened up for
>     the default ports used for other protocols - It really isn't a big
>     hassle reconfiguring them.
>
>     However, I side with David Morris in questioning the need distinguish
>     between IPP and HTTP. Is there one?

I'm not an expert in this area, but I'd speculate that the suggestion of
introducing a new URL scheme and a new port number, comes from
considerations of firewalls and security. If one is implementing a policy
of "deny-everything-not-explicitly-allowed", it might be regarded as a
"feature" that IPP would not go thru existing firewalls or proxies until
they were reconfigured.

I guess the reasonableness of this condition depends on the intended market
for IPP, and the default security policy it should be expected to have.

I'd argue that a new URL scheme is a reasonable way to introduce a
different default port; but again the price is that a lot of existing web
clients will give you dumb looks if handed a new URL scheme. But this may
not matter if HTTP is just seen as a transport for IPP.


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    Albert Lunde                      Albert-Lunde@nwu.edu