Re: SOAP IANA considerations

OK, so we all want to promote interoperability, right?  But I am
seeing a lot of disagreement in this thread about what rules for a
HTTP header name registry would promote interoperability most.

As far as I am concerned it is crazy to try to use an IETF registry to
force some minimal level of documentation requirements on all HTTP
headers.  Implementing a new header is as simple as adding a line in a
CGI script, and many people who have the need and ability to implement
new headers will simply not care about getting formal IETF approval of
their documentation, if they intend to publish documentation at all.

It would be useful if somebody ran a service which helps everybody in
picking new header names that nobody else is using yet.  So in my
opinion, the only way to maximally promote interoperability here is to
have very low requirements for registration.  In principle the *only*
requirement for registering a header should be the honest intention to
start using this header in internet HTTP-type traffic.  Similar weak
requirements already apply to the vendor mime type registry and the
media feature tag registry.

Koen.

Received on Sunday, 16 December 2001 13:31:08 UTC