- From: Phillip M. Hallam-Baker <hallam@dxal18.cern.ch>
- Date: Mon, 27 Mar 1995 13:22:29 +1000
- To: Roman Czyborra <czyborra@cs.tu-berlin.de>, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
- Cc: hallam@dxal18.cern.ch
>> Assuming that a feature in the protocol is easy to implement based <> on the effort to hack it into Unix is not a valid measure. > >Assuming that an optional header cannot be generated on all machines >is not a valid reason to rule it out for those who could. The problem is that the number of UNIX machines is now a very small proportion of the Web. The majority of clients connecting to the Whitehouse server are Windows. There are as many Macs as UNIX boxes. On the server side there is probably a majority of UNIX servers still but we know of a Windows server with tens of thousands of installations. Even if one has a UNIX box the proposed scheme still makes a considerable number of assumptions as to the layout and administration of the server. A large number of servers ar now run as separate machines and are not simply serving the filespace of the users direct. For such machines every document is owned by the same userid. Unless a mailto feature was likely to be reliable it should not be implemented. By reliable I mean that the mails should be read. It is a simple enough matter to add a `webmaster' line to the bottom of a document with a Perl script. Those sites who want such a feature are also likely to want that type of control. A from line would not be recognised by every browser so most sites would have to also add a webmaster line. This would then generate confusion since the two would have to match. Phill Hallam-Baker
Received on Monday, 27 March 1995 03:30:00 UTC