Re: Straw-man charter for http-bis

Am 01.06.2007 um 18:55 schrieb Keith Moore:
>> [Robert]That's exactly the argument. If a "more substantial"  
>> rewrite does a
>> better job of documenting HTTP, we should consider it. This
>> possibility shouldn't cause discomfort, because our shared goal is to
>> accurately document HTTP 1.1, right?
> The catch is that HTTP is (currently) specified by RFC 2616, and the
> most accurate documentation about HTTP is in RFC 2616.  If you replace
> 2616 with a completely different specification, you're not "accurately
> documenting" HTTP, you're _changing_ the specification.   You will
> inevitably create incompatibilities between "old" HTTP and "new" HTTP.
>
> I'm not saying it's inherently a bad idea to do that, I'm saying  
> that a
> rewrite is going to cause some interoperability issues even if you end
> up with a much clearer and/or more precise specification.

Taking a step back, what needs attention from the best of minds is  
2617. Let's face it: http authentication is awkward and compared to  
the rest of the protocol it feels like a child's toy, sitting in the  
glove compartment of a BMW.

With this in mind, I think a complete rewrite of 2616 is a waste of  
time and resources.

//Stefan