ACTION-347 Research 303 caching change in HTTPbis

Pursuant to ACTION-347 [1] I offer the following:

RFC 2616 [2] has:

   "The 303
   response MUST NOT be cached, but the response to the second
   (redirected) request might be cacheable."

which is unfortunate as it would have the effect either of creating
unnecessary network traffic, or of discouraging the use of 303 in
anticipation of same.

HTTPbis [3] has:

   "A 303 response SHOULD NOT be cached unless it is indicated as
   cacheable by Cache-Control or Expires header fields."

In my opinion the HTTPbis version is good, as it permits caching (you
just need the appropriate headers, exactly the same as for 302), and
the relevant part of the description of TAG ISSUE-57 [4] should be
either erased or annotated as having been addressed.

-Jonathan

[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/group/track/actions/347
[2] http://www.apps.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.html#sec-10.3.4
[3] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-08#section-8.3.4
[4] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/group/track/issues/57

Received on Tuesday, 5 January 2010 18:09:22 UTC