The use of HTTP 501 from Matthew Seaborn on 2011-08-26 (ietf-http-wg@w3.org from July to September 2011)

From: Matthew Seaborn <Matthew.Seaborn@performgroup.com>
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2011 07:34:32 +0000
To: "IETF HTTP-WG (ietf-http-wg@w3.org)" <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
Message-ID: <B1780BDA8FFCE843ACCDDBF794B524C30CBDE8@PERFELEXC10.ptv.com>

The RFC has the following specification for 501: "The server does not support the functionality required to fulfil the request. This is the appropriate response when the server does not recognize the request method and is not capable of supporting it for any resource."

However the recent specification for API for Media Resources 1.0 ( http://www.w3.org/TR/2011/WD-mediaont-api-1.0-20110712/#api-status-codes )  uses it in the case when "only a subset of GET methods for properties implemented".

What is the modern accepted usage of this response code?  Will the use specified in Media Resources spec confuse any clients if they return a 501 for some GET requests but not others?

Received on Friday, 26 August 2011 07:35:00 UTC