Re: #184: HTTP/0.9

Julian Reschke wrote:
> Mark Nottingham wrote:
>> <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/184>
>>> p1 appendix B:
>>>
>>> It is worth noting that, at the time of composing this specification 
>>> (1996), we would expect commercial HTTP/1.1 servers to:
>>>
>>>     • recognize the format of the Request-Line for HTTP/0.9, 1.0, and 
>>> 1.1 requests;
>>>     • understand any valid request in the format of HTTP/0.9, 1.0, or 
>>> 1.1;
>>>     • respond appropriately with a message in the same major version 
>>> used by the client.
>>
>> This was discussed in Stockholm, and the feeling in the room was that 
>> we should remove HTTP/0.9 from this text. Although it wasn't 
>> specifically discussed, we'll also change the date.
>>
>> Any further comments?
>  > ...
> 
> +1
> 
> In particular, we do *not* expect today's servers to understand 0.9 
> requests, and respond to them. Right? RIGHT?
> 
> So, the replacement text would be:
> 
> "It is worth noting that, at the time of composing this specification, 
> we would expect commercial HTTP/1.1 servers to:
> 
>     • recognize the format of the Request-Line for HTTP/1.0 and 1.1 
> requests;
>     • understand any valid request in the format of HTTP/1.0 or 1.1;
>     • respond appropriately with a message in the same major version 
> used by the client."

Note that there's another mention of 0.9 in the subsequent paragraph... 
Proposed change: 
<http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/attachment/ticket/184/184.diff>

Full text:


-- snip --
    It is beyond the scope of a protocol specification to mandate
    compliance with previous versions.  HTTP/1.1 was deliberately
    designed, however, to make supporting previous versions easy.  It is
    worth noting that, at the time of composing this specification, we
    would expect commercial HTTP/1.1 servers to:

    o  recognize the format of the Request-Line for HTTP/1.0 and 1.1
       requests;

    o  understand any valid request in the format of HTTP1.0 and 1.1;

    o  respond appropriately with a message in the same major version
       used by the client.

    And we would expect HTTP/1.1 clients to:

    o  recognize the format of the Status-Line for HTTP/1.0 and 1.1
       responses;

    o  understand any valid response in the format of HTTP/1.0 or 1.1.

    For most implementations of HTTP/1.0, each connection is established
    by the client prior to the request and closed by the server after
    sending the response.  Some implementations implement the Keep-Alive
    version of persistent connections described in Section 19.7.1 of
    [RFC2068].
-- snip --

BR, Julian

Received on Monday, 10 August 2009 20:07:11 UTC