Re: review of content type rules by IETF/HTTP community

On Aug 26, 2007, at 3:32 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> Robert Burns wrote:
>>> 1) Where's the advantage over "application/octet-stream"?
>> The advantage is that UAs are not supposed to sniff for content  
>> when the content is delivered with a MIME type from the server  
>> that's supposed to be treated as authoritative. Sending 'unknown',  
>> could be defined by RFC and IANA as meaning specifically the same  
>> as not sending a content-type header at all.
>
> Understood. But that requires changes in the UAs. How exactly is  
> this better compared to installing fixes for Apache?

Well the request to fix Apatche goes back over 5 years and Apache  
does not seem interested in fixing it. I was proposing another way to  
go that didn't rely on Apache.

>
>>> 2) You may want to look at <http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/ 
>>> show_bug.cgi?id=13986#c55>.
>> Yes, I did. In fact I cited it in my message. My comments were  
>> drawn substantially from reading the comments in that bug. It  
>> sounds like Apache does not want to fix the bug even though Boris  
>> long-ago submitted a patch. Using a IANA registered 'unknown' MIME  
>> type would accomplish the same thing (as long as the servers could  
>> be configured and pre-configured with 'DefaultType unknnown'.
>
> No, I meant comment #55 in that bug: It's going to be fixed soon.  
> See also <http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/httpd-dev/ 
> 200708.mbox/%3cDD9034EC-D3F4-4AF7-8AC1-8666A3B94C32@gbiv.com%3e>.

Well comment # 55 is only the last in a long list of comments ignored  
by Apache. Boris has alrready provide a patch and that was ignored.  
I'm not really clear what you're asking about here. Roy may provide a  
patch and that could be ignored. And that patch does nothing for the  
enormous installed base of Apache 1.3 installations. Apple (which is  
my Apache vendor) is still selling products with Apache 1.3 as the  
default server. Maybe that will change this year. I don't know, but  
it would be good to get this on the older servers too.

>
> What's not clear yet if and when that change will make it into the  
> 2.0.* and/or 2.2.* releases.

And what about 1.3?

Take care,
Rob

Received on Sunday, 26 August 2007 20:39:52 UTC