Re: OPTIONS issues from Koen

At 11:23 3/2/98 PST, Jeffrey Mogul wrote:

>Maybe the right approach is to focus on a resource-by-resource
>basis.  I.e., don't try too hard to define a protocol that
>works like
>
>	OPTIONS * HTTP/1.1
>	Host: foo.com

For the OPTIONS method this may in fact make sense just as well as it is
possible to get metainformation about a set of resources (which may or may
not reside on the same origin server) using PICS labels, RDF records, URNs
etc.

The question whether the information can be trusted is entirely up to the
user and will often be a function of where it comes from, where it applies
to, etc.

Mandatory describes which extensions are applied to an HTTP message and how
to deal with them. It does explicitly not deal with metainformation - this
is left to the individual extensions, or can be provided by the OPTIONS
method, RDF, PICS, or any other mechanism that you can think of. 

>I'll certainly grant that it adds round-trips if we insist
>that a client test options on a per-resource basis.

Metainformation about resources can not guarantee that it is sufficient or
needed to access the resource but it can give a good hint of what the
communicating parties can expect.

Henrik
--
Henrik Frystyk Nielsen,
World Wide Web Consortium
http://www.w3.org/People/Frystyk

Received on Monday, 2 March 1998 15:13:39 UTC