Re: GET/HEAD support "MUST"

Geoffrey Sneddon wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Both RFC2616 and bis both include the following:
>> The methods GET and HEAD MUST be supported by all general-purpose 
>> servers.
> 
> This is unclear for several reasons:
> 
> a) Although the server MUST support those two methods, MUST it support 
> it for every resource?

Dunno.

> b) What is a "general-purpose server"? This is the only time this phrase 
> occurs within RFC2616, with nothing to say what it refers to.

Dunno.

> I mention a) because a large number of web forms create a special 
> resource to send submissions of the form to. Inevitably, if that form is 
> to be sent via POST, a GET request of that resource makes little sense.

I guess the intent of this language is to ensure that any server that 
implements HTTP must be prepared for GET/HEAD requests on any URI.

That being said, it's probably sufficient that a special resource as 
described above just returns 401 or 501 -- so doing a retrieval never 
ever would cause a side-effect.

Mark, should we add that as editorial issue to the list?

BR, Julian