Re: ISO/IEC 10646 as Document Character Set

    From: erik@netscape.com (Erik van der Poel)
    Date: Wed, 03 May 95 19:59:04 -0700

    So I'm asking if it's necessary to "negotiate" the absence/presence of the
    charset parameter, because I'm worried that older clients may not be able
    to handle content-type headers that include the charset parameter.

There is already a means for such a negotiation; namely, the use of
a Simple-Request vs. a Full-Request.  A Full-Request request that its
sender be capable of interpreting at least HTTP/1.0. Since the CHARSET
parameter on the content media type is specified by HTTP/1.0, then
the use of a Full-Request says that you must, at a minimum, be able to
parse such this parameter. [Note that this doesn't mean you have to
either interpret or make use of the parameter.]

If a client is sending a Full-Request and cannot parse the parameter, then
it is broken and should be replaced.

Regards,
Glenn