Re: MHTML/HTTP 1.1 Conflicts

> 
> I understand that we are dealing with a legacy of bad HTTP choices
> back when there was no IETF involvement, adn the people developing
> ythe "standard" understood tha the way to set standards was to "just
> do what you wnat to do" adn get it over with.
> 
> All this menas that it is just an accident of history and so we have
> to just grin and bear it and live with all the bad fallout effects.

A historical note....

I'd like to say that _some_ of the differences between HTTP and
MIME were not entirely accidents of history: they were also
justified as being optimized for different transports.

I think I started following the http working group list
not long before the question of tolernance for different
kinds of end-of-line in text was being considered (or
reconsidered.)

At that time, there _were_ existing browsers which implemented
tolerance for different end of lines in various ways; so there
were legacy code issues. But there were also server authors
who wanted to optimize for speed: they wanted to be able to
just throw the bytes of a text file out on the net without
making the end-of-lines into some cannonical format.

The discussion was in December 1994 on http-wg list, much of it
under the Subject: "Re: Comments on the HTTP/1.0 draft."

See for example,
Chuck Shotton's comments at:
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1994q4/0101.html
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1994q4/0119.html
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1994q4/0122.html
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1994q4/0127.html

and other remarks in the same thread (I'm pointing out
Chuck mostly because I recall him as a server author who
spoke up at the time, not because he's the only one
who said something.)

See also:
Subject: "Closure on canonicalization, I hope"
http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1994q4/0300.html

(I admit to having said some questionable things in the same
threads because I was new to the process; but my personal involement
makes me remember it.)

You can view some of the other differences in a similar light
of optimizing for different transport.