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

I think Karl's rewording is worse. The point I really wanted to make was that documents that follow HTTP terminology often make the mistake of assuming a "user agent" has a "user".

But if "client" means the same thing as "user agent", then why have a separate term?

I just gave up on trying to fix this since no one wanted to do the work of changing "user agent" to "client" throughout the document, which might otherwise be necessary.

Larry
--
http://larry.masinter.net


-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Reschke [mailto:julian.reschke@gmx.de] 
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2011 11:32 AM
To: Karl Dubost
Cc: Mark Nottingham; Daniel Stenberg; Roy T. Fielding; HTTP Working Group; Larry Masinter
Subject: Re: Issue 166: clarify term "User Agent" and resolve inconsistencies with W3C specs

On 2011-12-08 20:22, Karl Dubost wrote:
>
> Le 5 déc. 2011 à 16:26, Julian Reschke a écrit :
>> 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."
>> Feedback appreciated, Julian
>
> if not too late, another suggestion.

I'd like to avoid re-opening, unless we have broad consensus that this is better...

> "Note: The term 'user agent' is generic. It can be a software 
> controlled by a human (including user interactions such as warnings, 
> privacy and security options, etc.) and it can also be an autonomous 
> software. The term 'client' is also often used."

Best regards, Julian

Received on Thursday, 8 December 2011 19:56:05 UTC