Re: Working Group Last Call: draft-ietf-httpbis-content-disp-02

* Adam Barth wrote:
>Right, this document is useful to folks who would like to generate
>this header.  It's a generative profile.  As such, its a profile for
>servers.  I'm just asking that the document be upfront about that.
>
>One the other hand, this document isn't very helpful to folks who
>would like to consume these headers.  Consumers will likely need to
>implement the full protocol, not just the well-behaved profile.  As
>such, we're still missing a specification for what user agents should
>do with these headers, which is one reason we have the
>interoperability problems Bjoern points out.

The goal is that authors can successfully suggest file names for and
treatment of entities that users may wish to download. That requires
that "servers" and "consumers" agree on a protocol to accomplish that.
The draft defines such a protocol, allowing for interoperability be-
tween "servers" and "consumers". This is about making stuff work, not
about cleaning up the mess browser vendors have created by arbitrarily
extending the protocol because they are not familiar with the concept
of input validation. That the draft does not try to fuse half a dozen
of differently broken implementations into a novel format for the
header that has only a small chance of being adopted properly does not
mean the protocol specification is for servers only.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
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Received on Saturday, 2 October 2010 23:16:50 UTC