- From: Janet Daly <janet@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 14:10:25 -0400
- To: w3c-news@w3.org
World Wide Web Consortium Supports HTTP/1.1 Reaching IETF Draft Standard
Relevant URI's
Press Release:
http://www.w3.org/1999/07/HTTP-PressRelease
Testimonials:
http://www.w3.org/1999/07/HTTP11-test.html
Network Performance Effects of HTTP/ 1.1, CSS1, and PNG
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/Performance/Pipeline.html
W3C Recommendations Reduce World Wide Wait
http://www.w3.org/Protocols/NL-PerfNote.html
IETF/ISOC Contacts
Mona Peloquin, <Mona_Peloquin@dc.edelman.com>, +1.202.326.1728
Keith Moore, <moore@cs.utk.edu>, +1.423.974.3126
Fred Baker, <fred@cisco.com>, +1.408.526.4257
W3C Contacts:
Janet Daly, <janet@w3.org>, +1.617.253.5884
Europe: Ned Mitchell, <ned@ala.com>, +33.1.43.22.79.56; or Andrew
Lloyd,<allo@ala.com>, +44.1.27.367.5100
Asia: Yuko Watanabe, <yuko@w3.org>, +81.466.49.1170
http://www.ietf.org/ and http://www.w3.org/ -- 7 July 1999 -- The World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is pleased to recognize that HTTP/1.1, along
with the accompanying authentication specification, has been approved by
the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) of the Internet
Engineering Task Force ( IETF) as a IETF Draft Standard.
HTTP/1.1 Improves Web Performance and Security
HTTP is the primary protocol of the Web, originally proposed by Tim
Berners-Lee while he was at CERN. HTTP/1.0, co-authored by Berners-Lee,
Henrik Frystyk Nielsen of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Roy
Fielding of the University of California at Irvine, was the first
version of the HTTP that was widely used on the Internet. Although
extremely popular, it had several significant performance issues that,
combined with increased use of the Web, caused severe load problems on
many parts of the Internet.
The purpose of HTTP/1.1, first proposed by Roy Fielding while at
ICS/University of California at Irvine, is to provide higher end-user
performance while preserving the integrity and stability of the Internet
using features including persistent connections, pipelining, caching,
and IP address preservation.
As important, the HTTP Digest Authentication mechanism, described in the
accompanying HTTP Authentication specification, defines a method for
authenticating a user to an HTTP server without exposing the user's
passwords to potential eavesdroppers. This is an important step toward
improving security on the Web.
W3C Participation in Development and Implementation
Standardization of HTTP has occurred in the IETF from its inception with
strong support from the W3C. W3C team members have contributed heavily
to the development of HTTP/1.1. Jim Gettys, visiting scientist at W3C
from Compaq Computer Corporation, serves as HTTP/1.1 editor and
co-author; Tim Berners-Lee, Director of W3C and Henrik Frystyk Nielsen,
W3C HTTP Activity Lead, are co-authors of HTTP/1.1. Other co-authors
include Roy Fielding of University of California at Irvine; Jeff Mogul
of Compaq; Paul Leach of Microsoft Corporation; and Larry Masinter of
Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center.
W3C has also made several HTTP/1.1 implementations: the libwww client
sample code library, by Henrik Frystyk Nielsen was used to demonstrate
many early designs; and Jigsaw, W3C's Web server, implemented by Yves
Lafon, Benoit Mahé, and Anselm Baird-Smith (now at Sun) implements both
a normal server as well as a proxy server. These are among the very
first HTTP/1.1 implementations, and play a key role in discovering
errors in the HTTP/1.1 Proposed Standard (RFC 2068). Currently, most
servers are able to support HTTP/1.1.
Previous W3C work includes a paper investigating HTTP/1.1 and the
interactions of compression, style sheets and HTTP/1.1 entitled:
"Network Performance Effects of HTTP/ 1.1, CSS1, and PNG" published in
ACM SIGCOMM '97, by Henrik Frystyk Nielsen, Jim Gettys, Anselm
Baird-Smith, Eric Prud'hommeaux, Håkon Wium Lie, and Chris Lilley of W3C.
IETF Draft Standard
Draft Standard is the second of the three step IETF standardization
process; it recognizes that that HTTP/1.1 is stable, and has multiple
interoperable implementations, and that all known technical issues have
been resolved in the specification. A Draft Standard is considered to be
very close to a final specification, and changes are likely to be made
only to solve specific problems encountered. The RFC, based on draft 6
of the specification revision with some minor final editorial changes,
is available as RFC 2616.
About The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international
community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers
concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth
operation of the Internet. It is the protocol engineering and
development arm of the Internet. The IETF conducts its technical work
through working groups, which are organized by topic into several
development areas and are managed by Area Directors. Area directors, in
turn, make up the IESG, which is responsible for both the technical
management of IETF activities and the Internet standards process.
About The Internet Society (ISOC)
The Internet Society (ISOC) is the international organization for global
coordination and cooperation for the Internet, and is comprised of
members from more than 150 countries. It was established in 1992 in
response to a recognized worldwide need for a non-governmental,
international organization to help support global expansion,
standardization and change of the Internet. The Internet Engineering
Task Force, the Internet standards body, conducts its work under the
auspices of the Internet Society.
About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
The W3C was created to lead the Web to its full potential by developing
common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its
interoperability. It is an international industry consortium jointly run
by the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (MIT LCS) in the USA, the
National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA)
in France and Keio University in Japan. Services provided by the
Consortium include: a repository of information about the World Wide Web
for developers and users, reference code implementations to embody and
promote standards, and various prototype and sample applications to
demonstrate use of new technology. To date, over 330 organizations are
Members of the Consortium.
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Received on Wednesday, 7 July 1999 14:10:53 UTC