Re: Transparency vs. Performance: survey of opinion

Larry Masinter:
>
>There's been additional discussion on the topic, but not a lot of the
>kinds of notes that make it sound like 'consensus'. Could folks please
>briefly let me know where you stand [...]

Roy's arguments have convinced me that, if HTTP/1.1 just required user
agents to never ignore Cache-Control response headers, this will not
lead to a conformance situation where Shell's and my problems are
solved.

I think it is necessary that HTTP/1.1 allows the `never cache'
setting, and other forms of weakening caching restrictions.

I think HTTP/1.1 must require clients that weaken caching restrictions
to send some warning about this in every request message made while
the restrictions are weakened.  I'm not convinced that just requiring
user agents to warn the user when restrictions are weakened is
suffficient.  See http://weeble.lut.ac.uk/lists/http-caching/0370.html
for an explanation.

Two new cache-control request directives, "may-cache" and "min-age"
that indicate possible weakening of any "no-cache" and "max-age"
restrictions, would work for me.  I would not mind having a more
elaborate warning mechanism, like the "Cache-Warning" header I defined
earlier.

Koen.

Received on Tuesday, 27 February 1996 11:36:29 UTC