Re: UA support for Content-Disposition header (filename parameter)

Maciej Stachowiak wrote:
>> Lachlan Hunt wrote:
>>> ...
>>> It is not the job of the HTML5 specification to require that 
>>> implementers support other specifications that do not have a direct 
>>> impact upon the features in HTML5.  Please just file appropriate bug 
>>> reports with browsers vendors that do not support the features 
>>> defined in that RFC.
>>> ...
>>
>> As a matter of fact, a bug report was raised against IE (something 
>> like 2003), and the answer was that it's not a bug.
>>
>> That's why I think it would be a good thing if HTML5 clarified that 
>> RFC2231 support is required.
> 
> Does the latest HTTP RFC require RFC2231? That sounds like the right 
> place to start, if we are to consider this RFC mandatory for user agents.

The latest HTTP RFC (2616) doesn't even require Content-Disposition; it 
is described under "Additional Features" 
(<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc2616.html#rfc.section.19.5>):

"RFC 1945 and RFC 2068 document protocol elements used by some existing 
HTTP implementations, but not consistently and correctly across most 
HTTP/1.1 applications. Implementors are advised to be aware of these 
features, but cannot rely upon their presence in, or interoperability 
with, other HTTP/1.1 applications. Some of these describe proposed 
experimental features, and some describe features that experimental 
deployment found lacking that are now addressed in the base HTTP/1.1 
specification."

Also note that RFC2231 describes more things as those needed for I18N 
support of filenames. I'm not sure whether these parts are implemented 
anywhere.

However, I'm sort of surprised to hear these kinds of arguments in the 
context of this working group. What happened to "pave the cow paths", 
"do not reinvent the wheel", "solve real problems", "support world 
languages" and so on...?

RFC2231 (or a subset of it) solves the I18N problem for the filename 
parameter, and it is implemented in (as far as I recall) Firefox and 
Opera. I'm not aware of any other solution to that problem  (the one 
used in IE depends on the client's config; thus can not be reliably 
assumed to work).

So why would this be out-of-scope for HTML5, while it (still) includes 
crap like "Peer-to-peer connections over IrDA" 
(<http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#irda-peer>)?

BR, Julian

Received on Sunday, 16 March 2008 11:19:34 UTC