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Re: Additional HTTP Status Codes - draft-nottingham-http-new-status-02

From: Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:48:40 +1100
Cc: "Thomson, Martin" <Martin.Thomson@commscope.com>, Dan Anderson <dan-anderson@cox.net>, "ietf-http-wg@w3.org" <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
Message-Id: <8A3B100B-D86F-4684-B521-18C66F1364CD@mnot.net>
To: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com>

On 20/10/2011, at 9:35 AM, Roy T. Fielding wrote:

>> I wonder if a 3xx response was considered.  Since the typical scenario involves redirection, it's not that much of a stretch to imagine 3xx.
> 
> I am not sure if we considered it or not -- it would be nice to make use
> of the Location header field.  Mark?

I think it was discussed a long time ago, in the previous draft. We can't assume that existing clients will treat a 3xx with a Location as a redirect, so it's of limited value (now) to use 3xx.

Also, redirection status codes currently all have a semantic of "the thing you're looking for is over there." In this case, that wouldn't be true. I know that's not a codified semantic of 3xx, but it does lead to a one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other situation.

And, of course, we can always specify the use of Location on 511 (for what good it will do).

I'm not against 3xx, BTW -- just trying to reconstruct how we got here.

--
Mark Nottingham   http://www.mnot.net/
Received on Thursday, 20 October 2011 02:49:08 UTC

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