Re: HTTP/1.1 pconns to 1.0 servers

On 2006/09/20, at 1:29 PM, Roy T. Fielding wrote:

> On Sep 20, 2006, at 10:08 AM, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>
>> HTTP/1.0 persistent connections are documented in RFC2068. One  
>> case that's not explicitly covered is when a HTTP/1.1 client sends  
>> a request to a HTTP/1.0 server without a Connection: keep-alive  
>> header.
>>
>> My reading of 2068, 2616 and 2145 is that the fact that the client  
>> indicates HTTP/1.1 in the request advertises their support for  
>> persistent connections, and a HTTP/1.0 server (whether origin or  
>> proxy) may safely use a Content-Length delimited persistent response.
>
> What is an HTTP/1.0 server?

OK, I'll bite. One that claims to conform to RFC1945 by sending the  
version string "HTTP/1.0" in responses.

> It was the intent of the WG that folks who claim to be using HTTP on
> the Internet should be doing so with HTTP/1.1, instead of making
> silly excuses not to.

If the WG really believed that, why bother with making 1.1. backwards- 
compatible at all?

> Anyone still claiming to use HTTP/1.0 will have
> to fend for themselves and test against every deployed system, since
> the only standard is for HTTP/1.1.

Well, that would be nice, but anecdotal evidence says that Squid is  
one of the most widely-deployed proxies out there, and it's still  
advertising HTTP/1.0. Saying that Squid has to fend for itself  
ignores the fact that everyone else has to deal with Squid (as we see  
with the prevalence of HTTP/1.1 clients sending Connection: keep-alive).

--
Mark Nottingham
mnot@yahoo-inc.com