Proposal Towards Universal HTTP/3, with a polyfill of QUIC for TCP (Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams-00.txt)

[Kazuho Oku <[e-mail]>]

Hello QUIC and HTTP enthusiasts,

We, Lucas and I, have submitted two drafts aimed at broadening the reach of
HTTP/3 - yes, making it available over TCP as well. We are eager to hear
your thoughts on these:

QUIC on Streams: A polyfill for operating QUIC on top of TCP.
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-kazuho-quic-quic-on-streams

HTTP/3 on Streams: How to run HTTP/3 unmodified over TCP, utilizing QUIC on
Streams.
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams

As the co-author of the two drafts, let me explain why we have submitted
these.

The rationale behind our proposal is the complexity of having two major
HTTP versions (HTTP/2 and HTTP/3), both actively used and extended. This
might not be the situation that we want to be in.

HTTP/2 is showing its age. We discussed its challenges at the IETF 118 side
meeting in Prague.

Despite these challenges, we are still trying to extend HTTP/2, as seen
with WebTransport. WebTransport extends both HTTP/3 and HTTP/2, but it does
so differently for each, due to the inherent differences between the HTTP
versions.

Why are we doing this?

Because HTTP/3 works only on QUIC. Given that UDP is not as universally
accessible as TCP, we find ourselves in a position where we need to
maintain and extend not only HTTP/3 but also HTTP/2 as a backstop protocol.

This effort comes with its costs, which we have been attempting to manage.

However, if we could create a polyfill for QUIC that operates on top of
TCP, and then use it to run HTTP/3 over TCP, do we still need to invest in
HTTP/2?

Of course, HTTP/2 won’t disappear overnight.

Yet, by making HTTP/3 more universally usable, we can at least stop
extending HTTP/2.

By focusing our new efforts solely on HTTP/3, we can conserve energy.

By making HTTP/3 universally accessible, and by having new extensions
solely to HTTP/3, we can expect a shift of traffic towards HTTP/3.

This shift would reduce the necessity to modify our HTTP/2 stacks (we’d be
less concerned about performance issues), and provide us with a better
chance to phase out HTTP/2 sooner.

Some might argue that implementing a polyfill of QUIC comes with its own
set of costs. However, it is my understanding that many QUIC stacks already
have the capability to read QUIC frames other than from QUIC packets,
primarily for testing purposes. This suggests that the effort would be more
about leveraging existing code paths rather than writing new code from
scratch. Furthermore, a QUIC polyfill would extend its benefits beyond just
HTTP, by aiding other application protocols that aim to be built on top of
QUIC, providing them accessibility over TCP.

Please let us know what you think. Best regards,

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: <[e-mail]>
Date: 2024年2月16日(金) 17:15
Subject: New Version Notification for
draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams-00.txt
To: Kazuho Oku <[e-mail]>, Lucas Pardue <[e-mail]>


A new version of Internet-Draft draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams-00.txt
has been successfully submitted by Kazuho Oku and posted to the
IETF repository.

Name:     draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams
Revision: 00
Title:    HTTP/3 on Streams
Date:     2024-02-16
Group:    Individual Submission
Pages:    5
URL:
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams-00.txt
Status:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams/
HTML:
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams-00.html
HTMLized:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams


Abstract:

   This document specifies how to use HTTP/3 on top of bi-directional,
   byte-oriented streams such as TLS over TCP.

Discussion Venues

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the HTTP Working Group
   mailing list ([e-mail]), which is archived at
   https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/kazuho/draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams.



The IETF Secretariat




-- 
Kazuho Oku