NEW ISSUE: Use of "Client" in 14.4

• From: Travis Snoozy (Volt) <a-travis@microsoft.com>
• Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 12:26:25 -0800
• To: "ietf-http-wg@w3.org" <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
• Message-ID: <86EDC3963F04D546BED8996F77D290F6049D118116@NA-EXMSG-C138.redmond.corp.microsoft>

Section 14.4, page 105, reads as follows:

   As intelligibility is highly dependent on the individual user, it is
   recommended that client applications make the choice of linguistic
   preference available to the user. If the choice is not made available,
   then the Accept-Language header field MUST NOT be given in the request.

Note that *user agents* are really the only clients in the position to make
this choice readily available to users. A strict interpretation of this
would mean that other non-user-agent clients (e.g., proxies) "MUST NOT" give
an Accept-Language header in their requests, because they can not (easily)
give users a "choice of linguistic preference". That could lead to all sorts
of silliness (e.g., proxies stripping Accept-Language before forwarding)
that very likely isn't intended.

I propose the following fix:

   As intelligibility is highly dependent on the individual user, it is
   recommended that <del>client applications</del><ins>user agents</ins>
   make the choice of linguistic preference available to the user. If the
   choice is not made available, then the Accept-Language header field MUST
   NOT be given in the request.


Thoughts?

-- Travis

Received on Thursday, 4 January 2007 20:26:35 UTC