- From: Jonathan Rees <jar@creativecommons.org>
- Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:47:50 -0400
- To: HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
- Cc: www-tag@w3.org
Quoting from http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-06#page-24 : A 303 response to a GET request indicates that the requested resource does not have a representation of its own that can be transferred by the server over HTTP. ... Note that answers to the questions of what can be represented, what representations are adequate, and what might be a useful description are outside the scope of HTTP and thus entirely determined by the resource owner(s). 1. I think the first sentence makes too strong a commitment. Some sites are using 303 for resources that *do* have perfectly good representations that can be transferred by the server over HTTP; they just don't want to do so because they consider the 303 redirect to a description of the resource to be more valuable than providing representations. Perhaps when LRDD comes on line the need to use 303 to provide metadata will decrease, but I see no reason to restrict 303 to representationless resources. In addition, the TAG's httpRange-14 rule [1] does not restrict the resource in the 303 case in any way at all, so saying that it does would introduce an incompatibility that would have to be resolved. It is easy to imagine other cases where one uses a 303 because one has a description (e.g. an article abstract) of the resource but the resource itself, while having perfectly good "representations", is protected or offline. I recommend changing this to something weaselly like A 303 response to a GET request *may indicate* that the requested resource does not have a representation of its own that can be transferred by ... 2. The last sentence is also incorrect - to say that these decisions are up to the resource's owner is also too strong a commitment. For example, if I create a URI meant to "identify" my neighbor's car, it is not necessarily up to my neighbor to determine what a useful description of it is. Even if you say that "what representations are adequate" and so on are up to the URI owner (a term defined not by HTTP but rather by AWWW), as opposed to the resource owner, you are making a very strong architectural commitment that is certainly not in the scope of HTTP. I advise that you simply remove the phrase " and thus entirely determined by the resource owner(s)". Best Jonathan Rees [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2005Jun/0039.html
Received on Monday, 15 June 2009 13:48:36 UTC