- From: <jg@zorch.w3.org>
- Date: Tue, 18 Feb 97 14:19:30 -0500
- To: Luigi Rizzo <luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it>
- Cc: touch@isi.edu, bertold@tohotom.vein.hu, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com, www-talk@www10.www3.org
As a protocol, HTTP ought to run fine over more or less any reliable transport. It does not depend on any particular TCP feature (e.g. urgent data, push bits or delivery of resets). I will note, however, that the ability to close different sides of the connection turns out to be an important implementation detail in HTTP/1.1 (see our paper for details), though if this were not possible in some other protocol there are probably work arounds. And the protocol specification defines various behavior of opening/reopening connections in failure conditions that might or might be applicable using a different transport protocol. See the section on message transmission requirements. URL's, however, specify the access protocol in more detail: http: in a URL implies a number of things more than just the protocol, TCP port 80 (by default) first part of the path is the host name, possibly with the port number. The other place the protocol spec messes with Internet specific items is with the Host header, the cludge around to deal with the fact the full URI is not necessarily transmitted in HTTP/1.0. Sigh... - Jim
Received on Tuesday, 18 February 1997 14:10:34 UTC