Re: Unbound DATA frames in HTTP/3 proposal

It's been a while and I didn't recall details, so I did a bit of spelunking for the history. There was a proposal<https://github.com/quicwg/base-drafts/pull/2098> to allow DATA frames with length==0 to behave this way, extending to the end of the data stream, for all the reasons you cite.  It was merged, but then Martin observed that all the discussion of it had been on GitHub, rather than the list, so deciding that there had been consensus to merge was improper. We did discuss it on the list<https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/quic/3v2fwQJeWO8m7wYazBPxwRDWl88/>, and subsequently reverted it.

This isn't an argument for or against your extension, but do page in the history before re-attempting something we decided against previously.
________________________________
From: Yaroslav Rosomakho <yrosomakho@zscaler.com>
Sent: Friday, October 3, 2025 4:42 PM
To: ietf-http-wg@w3.org <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
Cc: David Schinazi <dschinazi.ietf@gmail.com>
Subject: Unbound DATA frames in HTTP/3 proposal

Dear HTTP Working Group,

While HTTP/3 streams are very efficient for long-term connections such as CONNECT, WebSockets and WebTransport, the requirement to encapsulate everything into finite-length DATA frames reduces potential performance and flexibility. Best case scenario it introduces few extra unnecessary bytes on the wire, worst case scenario it can cause an extra memory copy.

David and I would like to propose an optional extension, UNBOUND_DATA frame. This frame indicates that the remainder of the stream is data. This reduces framing overhead and simplifies transmission of long-lived or indeterminate-length payloads.

Feedback and suggestions are very welcome.

Best Regards,
Yaroslav

---------- Forwarded message ---------
A new version of Internet-Draft draft-rosomakho-httpbis-h3-unbound-data-00.txt
has been successfully submitted by Yaroslav Rosomakho and posted to the
IETF repository.

Name:     draft-rosomakho-httpbis-h3-unbound-data
Revision: 00
Title:    Unbound DATA Frames in HTTP/3
Date:     2025-10-03
Group:    Individual Submission
Pages:    8
URL:      https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-rosomakho-httpbis-h3-unbound-data-00.txt
Status:   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-rosomakho-httpbis-h3-unbound-data/
HTML:     https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-rosomakho-httpbis-h3-unbound-data-00.html
HTMLized: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-rosomakho-httpbis-h3-unbound-data


Abstract:

   This document defines a new HTTP/3 frame type, UNBOUND_DATA, and a
   corresponding SETTINGS parameter that enables endpoints to negotiate
   its use.  When an endpoint sends an UNBOUND_DATA frame on a request
   or response stream, it indicates that all subsequent octets on that
   stream are interpreted as data.  This applies both to message body
   data and to octets transmitted after CONNECT or extended CONNECT.
   The use of UNBOUND_DATA removes the need to encapsulate each portion
   of the data in DATA frames, reducing framing overhead and simplifying
   transmission of long-lived or indeterminate-length payloads.



The IETF Secretariat


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