- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@adobe.com>
- Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:24:07 -0700
- To: Smylers <Smylers@stripey.com>, Mike Kelly <mike@mykanjo.co.uk>, "public-html@w3.org" <public-html@w3.org>
> HTML does not currently provision for hyperlinks to indicate a > specific content-type preference for the Accept header of a given > request. In content negotiation in HTTP, the requestor (client, browser) tells the server the preferences, capabilities or characteristics. Putting a "content-type" 'preference' in the HTML doesn't make much sense from this point of view: the producer of the HTML is telling the consumer of the HTML what the consumer's preferences should be? > This feature would also break bookmarks: a user could bookmark a page's > URL, believing that the URL identifies that page, yet on later visiting > that bookmark being served different content. The producer of a resource which returns different representations for different requests takes the responsibility for insuring that, from the producer's point of view, the representations are equivalent. > Without a formal mechanism in HTML which can specify to UAs the > contextual content-type preference for a given hyperlink, HTML is not > a viable hypermedia format for systems which must rigorously leverage > HTTP conneg What systems "must rigorously leverage HTTP connect" (and what does that mean?) BTW, the text around content negotiation in HTTP was recently rewritten, see http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/81 and the proposed rewrite (scheduled for inclusion in -08 spec): http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/2009JulSep/0763.html with minor corrections: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/2009JulSep/0781.html Larry -- http://larry.masinter.net
Received on Friday, 16 October 2009 19:24:39 UTC