Re: Issue 166: clarify term "User Agent" and resolve inconsistencies with W3C specs

Hi Julian,

On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 10:26:15PM +0100, Julian Reschke wrote:
> On 2009-06-03 09:48, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> >I'd agree the chosen terminology isn't great. Not sure that changing it
> >wouldn't cause more proplems than it solves.
> >...
> 
> We had a off-list conversation with Larry, and he suggested text leaving 
> the definition as-is, but adding a note make it clearer that in
> HTTP, "user agent" can also mean "autonomous client".
> 
> Proposed text: 
> <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/attachment/ticket/166/166.diff>.
> 
> The new paragraph would be:
> 
> "Note: The term 'user agent' covers both those situations where there is 
> a user (human) interacting with the software agent (and for which user 
> interface or interactive suggestions might be made, e.g., warning the 
> user or given the user an option in the case of security or privacy 
> options) and also those where the software agent may act autonomously."

The long sentence between parenthesis is not easy to parse but I have no
proposal for anything better. Anyway, once you get it, everything is clear.

+1 for me.

Best regards,
Willy

Received on Monday, 5 December 2011 22:12:59 UTC