Re: clarify some MUST requirements in HTTPbis part 1 section 3.3

Hi Adrien,

On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 08:51:34PM +1300, Adrien de Croy wrote:
> 
> I don't see it that way.  If the intermediary owns the TCP connection to 
> the client, it is the emitter.
> 
> HTTP explicitly prohibits sending multiple Content-Length headers.
> 
> Therefore an intermediary must not send more than one.  Regardless of 
> what it receives.

It's not only a matter of whether it owns the TCP connection or not, but
also what it does with it. A basic TCP proxy owns the connections too and
becomes the emitter, still it cannot claim to be an HTTP agent and even
less to be able to fix complex protocol issues.

In my opinion, the difference lies on who produces the contents. If a proxy
builds a complete request from a list of headers, it has no excuse for not
producing them right. If a proxy just buffers TCP payload until it sees a
double CRLF, makes a few checks there and lets them go, we cannot expect it
to fix such issues.

Of course everything is not that black and white but it is easy to spot
some valid uses of every variations and to act responsibly in every case.

Regards,
Willy