Re: "Hits" pragma

Brian Behlendorf <brian@organic.com> writes:
> What would the proxy administrator get out of this?  Well,
> the more info  that can be forwarded, the more likely
> content providers will start  putting useful Expires in
> their documents.  Web protocols of course  should not be
> designed around "who's more selfish", but hopefully
> there's  a common ground that can be reached.

Finding this common ground is the crucial point.  Could you perhaps  
whittle your "wish list" of reporting information down to a  
"requirements list" or even a "prevention of open rebellion list"?

My main point is that there _is_ a way to start a positive feedback  
loop and get out of this prisoners' dilemma ("who's more selfish"):

  (1) merge reporting into the ordinary, profit-making operations
      of the proxy (by forwarding "bundled" requests).

  (2) make sure adoption of such reporting by major proxies will act
      as a positive incentive for servers to start using Expires
      correctly (if you use Expires right you get periodic reports
      automatically, while if you don't you get blocked!).

I put forward the simplest possible backwards-compatible scheme of  
this sort, in the hopes of getting _something_ started.  But if the  
"open rebellion list" includes more than hit counts, we will  
probably need to include some additional "bundled reporting"  
features.

> *every* client of ours wants stats as to  the busiest time
> of day for their sites

I don't get it....isn't the point of electronic commerce to break  
out of the constraints of space and time that limit ordinary  
commerce?

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Burchard	<burchard@cs.princeton.edu>
``I'm still learning how to count backwards from infinity...''
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Received on Saturday, 12 August 1995 18:50:31 UTC