Re: Request for feedback on HTTP Location header syntax + semantics, Re: Issues 43 and 185, was: Issue 43 (combining fragments)

On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 9:28 AM, Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de> wrote:
> On 11.03.2010 18:22, Jonas Sicking wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 7:48 AM, Julian Reschke<julian.reschke@gmx.de>
>>  wrote:
>>>
>>> On 11.03.2010 16:38, Jonas Sicking wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 7:35 AM, Julian Reschke<julian.reschke@gmx.de>
>>>>  wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Should we recommend the behavior we see implemented (SHOULD? MUST?)?
>>>>> Note
>>>>> that this would make current implementations of Opera and Safari
>>>>> non-compliant.
>>>>
>>>> Is there a reason to use SHOULD rather than MUST? If not I'd say use
>>>> MUST.
>>>
>>> Usually we don't add normative requirements on top of RFC 2616, unless
>>> we're
>>> clearly fixing a bug (which is not the case here), or are confident that
>>> we're just writing down what everybody is doing anyway.
>>
>> Why? Isn't the point of a spec to encourage interoperable behavior?
>
> It depends.
>
> If there's no interop today, and the existing implementations are conforming
> with respect to RFC 2616, we *usually* don't break them - there would need
> to be very good reasons to do so, such as security related ones.

I can't say that I agree with that reasoning. IMHO interoperability
going forward is more important than not declaring currently
conforming implementations non-conforming. If anyone gets really sad
for loosing their conforming badge, I can send them some home made
cookies ;)

/ Jonas

Received on Thursday, 11 March 2010 17:53:29 UTC