issue: what version?

• From: Dave Kristol <dmk@research.bell-labs.com>
• Date: Tue, 3 Dec 96 12:05:56 EST
• To: masinter@parc.xerox.com, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
• Message-Id: <9612031705.AA07597@zp>

I don't recall whether the following issue was resolved on the mailing list:

What protocol version number should an HTTP/1.1-compliant origin server
send for an HTTP/1.0 request?

There seemed to be two camps:
1) Send HTTP/1.0 as the response to HTTP/1.0 requests (and HTTP/1.1 as the
	response to HTTP/1.1 requests).

	Pro:	HTTP/1.0 clients may only understand HTTP/1.0 responses
	Con:	a client would never be able to determine whether a server
		understands HTTP/1.1

2) Send HTTP/1.1 responses always.

	Pro:	the server advertises its capability
	Con:    because the response (headers) must be HTTP/1.0
		compatible, the server is "lying" about the kind of
		response and may mislead or confuse the client.

My preference is (1).
Dave Kristol

Received on Tuesday, 3 December 1996 09:19:55 UTC