Re: RFC2616 errata: HTTP-Version should be case-sensitive

On Tue, 17 Sep 2002, Roy T. Fielding wrote:

> The software that has been deployed since 1991 does not support
> lowercase (or mixed case) "http" in the version string.  Using it is
> not interoperable.  The specification defines what is interoperable,
> not what might eventually be interoperable.

The specification defines what MUST/SHOULD/MAY be interoperable given
compliant implementation(s). Nothing else. Since the spec is written
before most implementations, the spec cannot predict what is actually
interoperable today, especially given that most (if not all) HTTP
implementations are not compliant!

More importantly, there are many things in RFC 2616 that are not
interoperable today, even on a MUST level. I can see two choices:

	- document interoperability problems
	  (there has been an effort to do that, like RFC 3143;
	  most of those problems are not true RFC errata, but
	  implementation bugs or areas that the RFC does not cover)

	- revise HTTP to remove whatever is not interoperable today
	  (your proposal belongs to this category, and there are
	  far more important things that do not interoperate; again,
	  this is not true RFC 2616 errata, but could lead to new
	  RFCs like "Streamlined HTTP" or "Slim HTTP" or, god forbid,
	  "HTTP/2.0"; is there enough demand to go in this direction?)

To summarize, I think that the change you propose makes perfect sense,
but I disagree that it is an errata. If the consensus is that changes
to reflect todays interoperability problems are appropriate, a lot
more similar changes should be done.

Thanks,

Alex.

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Received on Tuesday, 17 September 2002 15:54:01 UTC