Re: Is 303 really necessary?

On Fri, 2010-11-19 at 07:26 -0500, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
[ . . . ]
> To conclude, I am saying:
> 
> 1. No new HTTP response codes
> 2. Web Servers continue to return 200 OK for Document URLs 
> 3. Linked Data Servers have option handle Name or Address
> disambiguation using 303 redirection for slash URIs
> 4. Linked Data Servers have option to be like Web Servers i.e. do no
> Name or Address disambiguation leaving Linked Data aware user agents
> to understand the content of Description Documents
> 5. Linked Data aware User Agents handle Name or Address
> disambiguation.
> 
> IMHO: when the dust settles, this is what it boils down to. On our
> side, we're done re. 1-5 across our Linked Data server and client
> functionality, as delivered by our products :-)
> 
I think the above reflects reality, regardless of what is recommended,
because:

 - some Linked Data Servers *will* serve RDF with 200 response codes via
slash URIs, regardless of what is recommended;

 - some User Agents *will* still try to use that data;

 - those User Agents may or may not care about the ambiguity between the
toucan and its web page;

 - those that do care will use whatever heuristics they have to
disambiguate, and the heuristic of ignoring the 200 response code is
very pragmatic.


-- 
David Booth, Ph.D.
Cleveland Clinic (contractor)
http://dbooth.org/

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect those of Cleveland Clinic.

Received on Friday, 19 November 2010 21:56:15 UTC