RE: Finding consensus on alt-svc, was: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nottingham-httpbis-alt-svc as a normative reference in http/2

While I wasn't in London, it sounds like the consensus there was "don't block the spec."  However, there are a couple approaches to "don't block" that are being used by different people.

Some seem to be advocating a normative reference, which makes HTTP/2 dependent on the Alt-Svc draft, and achieves "don't block" by getting the draft done so quickly that it doesn't (further) delay the HTTP/2 RFC.  When we're already unable to finish HTTP/2 on schedule, this makes me worry that the draft would be rushed.

Others are advocating an informative reference, where Alt-Svc would be dependent on the HTTP/2 spec and could finish afterward -- that corresponds better to my understanding of non-blocking.  The problem with that approach is that with no extensibility mechanism in HTTP/2, if Alt-Svc needs *anything* from the base protocol it has to be known before HTTP/2 goes to RFC.  That makes the obvious interpretation of not blocking rather problematic, now that Alt-Svc isn't simply using headers.

What is the most contained set of changes we could make, either to HTTP/2 or Alt-Svc, to decouple them? 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Trace [mailto:Rob.Trace@microsoft.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 7:09 AM
To: Julian Reschke; Mark Nottingham
Cc: "William Chan (陈智昌)"; HTTP Working Group
Subject: RE: Finding consensus on alt-svc, was: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nottingham-httpbis-alt-svc as a normative reference in http/2

Thanks Julian,  that's correct.  My opinion is that Alt-Svc is not strictly needed for HTTP/2 and my concern would be that if the alt-svc conversation goes on for too long, it will impact HTTP/2.


-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Reschke [mailto:julian.reschke@gmx.de] 
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2014 1:04 AM
To: Mark Nottingham
Cc: Rob Trace; "William Chan (陈智昌)"; HTTP Working Group
Subject: Re: Finding consensus on alt-svc, was: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nottingham-httpbis-alt-svc as a normative reference in http/2

On 2014-03-20 08:57, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> I don't think that's the case, Julian. Alt-Svc is used for many things; William has so far only expressed a reservation about one use case. Likewise, Rob's message was just about upgrade, not other uses of Alt-Svc.
>
> Cheers,
> ...

Rob said: "In particular, I do not want to see the Alt-Svc work further delaying HTTP/2." which IMHO implies that he think it's not strictly needed (otherwise the statement wouldn't make sense, right?).

Best regards, Julian

Received on Thursday, 20 March 2014 18:03:55 UTC