Re: RE-VERSION

On Mon, 11 Aug 1997, Josh wrote:

> 
> My point here is that it essentially makes this server version
> advertisement useless, therefore, philosophically, I beleive
> the response version should be the entity-version.
> 

Instead of debating which is more useful, might it not be sensible to
consider sending BOTH in a clearly labelled fashion.

> 
> As a proxy implementor, the issue of figuring out what
> the entity version is and when I can send it to what 
> version client is a real problem, that exists today,
> and life would be easier if the response version
> was something useful like entity-version.
> 

I think this issue can be tricky.  Keep in mind that a 1.1 server
responding to a 1.2 proxy is free to send an entity with a
1.1 version header, but using ANY 1.2 features it wants.  Indeed
it was precisely to facilitate this that the "capability semantics"
of the version header was designed.

Compare this with sending both.  If a 1.1 server sends an entity to a
1.2 proxy which says the server version is 1.1 but the entity version
is 1.2, then it is completely clear that the server is only
conditionally compliant up to 1.1 but it is using 1.2 features so the
entity sent is only guaranteed to be useful, as sent, for a 1.2 agent.



John Franks 	Dept of Math. Northwestern University
		john@math.nwu.edu

Received on Monday, 11 August 1997 10:22:17 UTC