- From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu>
- Date: Sun, 01 Mar 1998 22:44:39 -0800
- To: Henrik Frystyk Nielsen <frystyk@w3.org>
- Cc: HTTP Working Group <http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com>
>Yes indeed - this is quite important for something like Mandatory, if we >want ever to be able to not use it without the method name fix. If there is >any use of the version number at all then an application must assume that >it can't understand a major version higher than what it knows about. But Henrik, both are demonstrably false. The "method name fix" does not work with existing proxies, since many existing proxies will forward an unknown method name even if they do not understand it. Requiring that servers puke on each new major version number does not work because HTTP/1.x servers do not puke on each new major version number, nor should they since the decision of when and why to bump the major version number is essentially a political one. In order for Mandatory to work, you must find a mechanism that works with existing systems, and the only one that works right now is to probe the connection with an OPTIONS request. We can't standardize on something that is based on a prerequisite contrary to reality. ....Roy
Received on Sunday, 1 March 1998 22:49:41 UTC