Re: Rethinking content negotiation (Was: rethinking caching)

On Sat, 23 Dec 1995, Koen Holtman wrote:

> By the way, I disagree with Larry Masinter on where to draw the line
> between content negotiation and caching. My assignment of header
> responsibility is:
> 
> Content negotiation subgroup:
>  Accept-*, URI, Location
> 
> Caching subgroup:
>  Expires, Cache-control, If-Modified-Since, ....
> 
> URI and Location are both used by all types of clients, not just
> proxies, in reactive negotiation.  This makes them primarily the
> responsibility of the negotiation subgroup.

THe only problem with your position is that desigining negotiation 
while igoring proxy/caching issues can't be successful. Either negotiation
won't work in the general cases or proxies will never be able to determine
if a response can be delivered in response to another requrest.

Furthermore, to some degree or another all clients provide caching as well
so caching is not simply a proxy issue.

I think Larry Masinter's split makes much sense, especially considering the
broad participation in the proxy/caching sub-group. If the negotiation group
can identify how to specify and what to negotiate then the join the 
caching/proxy discussion to make sure we end up with a cohesive mechanism
which covers all issues.

Dave Morris

Received on Saturday, 23 December 1995 16:20:55 UTC