Re: #296: 203 Non-Authoritative Information: deprecate?

In message <4DF0DDCA.3090700@gmail.com>, Dzonatas Sol writes:
>On 06/09/2011 01:26 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

>>> I'm still not convinced it's even possible to create a 100%
>>> "transparent" (in the common english sense of the word) proxy that
>>> complies with the RFC.
>>>      
>> I have always understood the "transparent" to pertain to the contents
>> being undamaged and unchanged, and not to the details of how it was
>> transmitted (Via, Transfer-Encoding etc) ?
>
>Yet we also speak of proxies that transform the protocol and scheme and 
>try not to change the semantic content. That may seem transparent to the 
>semantic web.

That is what I consider a proper proxy:  A gadget which facilitates
communication without disturbing the message content.

It certainly seems to me that we should make sure we all agree what
the existing words mean, before we expect the rest of the world to
understand what we are talking about.

My cheat sheet:

	Does it receives HTTP requests and generate responses:
		Name: HTTP Server
		RFC treatment: as HTTP origin server

	Does it send HTTP request and expects responses:
		Name: HTTP Client
		RFC treatment: as HTTP Client

	Does it facilitate or optimize communication between
	server and client, without disturbing content availability,
	meaning or semantics:
		Name: HTTP Proxy
		RFC treatment: as HTTP Proxy
		Example acceptabletransformations:
			PNG->GIF conversion
			gzip compression,
			caching according to RFC rules
			HTTP/1.1 -> HTTP/0.9 conversion

	Anything else:
		Name: HTTP Gateway
		RFC treatment: as unrelated HTTP Client and HTTP origin
		server, connected by unspecified processing step.
		Example processing steps:
			Malware scanning
			Censorship
			Insertion of advertisements
			Translation from Chinese to French
			Rendering to safe bitmap form



-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Received on Thursday, 9 June 2011 16:50:41 UTC