[web-annotation] avoid constraining HTTP

dret has just created a new issue for 
https://github.com/w3c/web-annotation:

== avoid constraining HTTP ==
http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-annotation-protocol-20150702/#http-requirements
 has MUSTs in there that try to constrain HTTP servers. this is not 
something that HTTP servers reasonably can be required to do. more 
specifically, clients should have no knowledge of "specific servers" 
anyway; they simply follow links and interact via HTTP to accomplish 
application goals. they may interact with one or various "specific 
servers" along the way, and the web thrives because clients are *not* 
tightly coupled to specific servers. clients send self-contained HTTP 
requests and then have to handle requests individually. no assumptions
 should be made that go beyond the single request/response scope.
for example, the WD says "All supported methods for interacting with 
the Annotation Container MUST be advertised in the Allow header of all
 responses from the container." this constrains HTTP which defines a 
MAY (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7231#section-7.4.1), and it does 
not accomplish anything because in the end, clients can try any method
 and servers can change their minds between request/response 
interactions, so in the end maybe "Allow" can be a helpful hint, but 
it's optional, not reliable, and clients still have to deal with 
servers responding with 405s (which per spec then MUST have "Allow").

See https://github.com/w3c/web-annotation/issues/51

Received on Tuesday, 7 July 2015 19:45:25 UTC