Re: How to add new "protocols" ?

> From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
> 
> I think the short answer to "how to add new protocols to HTTP"
> is that "there isn't any way right now" and that if anyone
> has a serious proposal for how to do so and under what circumstances
> it would be a reasonable thing to do, they should write it up.
> 
> Otherwise, we can talk about this for a long time in HTTP-WG
> without making a lot of progress.

I'd like to run the following around, and if there is
reasonable consensus, I would be happy to write a 
more complete description.

First, let me note that there are two distinct 
parts to HTTP - one in-band, and one out-of-band.
The in-band are the HTTP commands, the out-of-band
deals currently only with TCP, hostnames, and the port selection.

A modified version might look like:


	(in-band-protocol):[out-of-band protocol]//loc-info/file-info

where loc-info is parsed according to the out-of-band protocol type.

I.e.,

	http:tp4//iso-name/file

The default currently would be presumed as 

	out-of-band protocol 	= TCP
	loc-info		= IPv4 DNS name or IP address,
				 and TCP port number

The idea is to separate the URL as follows:

	what to say:over what connection//where to talk to/what to get

Note that this is a URL mechanism only. Is this what you're looking
for??

Joe
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Touch - touch@isi.edu		    http://www.isi.edu/~touch/
ISI / Project Leader, ATOMIC-2, LSAM       http://www.isi.edu/atomic2/
USC / Research Assistant Prof.                http://www.isi.edu/lsam/