- From: Yaron Goland <yarong@microsoft.com>
- Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 19:00:17 -0800
- To: http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Let me state my agreement with Jim Gettys, Larry Masinter, and Roy Fielding on the issue of changes being made to the HTTP/1.1 proposed draft. The proposed draft is the standard. Any changes we are making should only be to fix known problems and should only be done in a way such that RFC 2068 compliant programs will remain compliant with the draft version of the standard. This means that all new optional features, such as Accept-TE, do not get included in the draft standard. This means that any features that are not backwards compatible, such as changing basic auth syntax or putting in more than 3 digit error codes, with RFC 2068 do not get included in the draft standard. This means that any features that have not been independently implemented by at least two vendors do not get included in the draft standard. Moving from Proposed to Draft is not a chance to put in new features that we now realize are useful based on our experience with RFC 2068. This is only a chance to fix known problems, in a backwards compatible way. If you want to add a new optional feature, write up an RFC and put it on standards track. If you want to put in a new mandatory feature or change expected protocol behavior then rev the protocol number. But if a proposed change fails any of the previous three tests then it has no business being put into the draft standard. Yaron
Received on Thursday, 20 November 1997 19:01:39 UTC