RE: Straw-man for our next charter

[Larry Masinter <[e-mail]>]

The sniffing I was in particular hoping to stop is content-type sniffing.
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-websec-mime-sniff-03

" Many web servers supply incorrect Content-Type header fields with
   their HTTP responses.  In order to be compatible with these servers,
   user agents consider the content of HTTP responses as well as the
   Content-Type header fields when determining the effective media type
   of the response."

If browsers suddenly stopped sniffing HTTP/1.1 content, it would break existing web sites, so of course the browser makers are reluctant to do that.

However, if it was a requirement to supply a _correct_ content-type header for HTTP/2.0, and no HTTP/2.0 client sniffed, then sites upgrading to HTTP/2.0 would fix their content-type sending (because when they were deploying HTTP/2.0 they would have to in order to get any browser to work with them.)

Basically, sniffing is a wart which backward compatibility keeps in place. Introducing a new version is a unique opportunity to remove it. 

The improved performance would come from having to look at the content to determine before routing to the appropriate processor.

Larry


-----Original Message-----
From: Amos Jeffries [mailto:[e-mail]] 
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2012 11:53 PM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Straw-man for our next charter

On 28/07/2012 6:39 p.m., Larry Masinter wrote:
> re changes to semantics: consider the possibility of eliminating 
> "sniffing" in HTTP/2.0. If sniffing is justified for compatibility 
> with deployed servers, could we eliminate sniffing for 2.0 sites?
>
> It would improve reliability, security, and even performance. Yes, 
> popular browsers would have to agree not to sniff sites running 2.0, 
> so that sites wanting 2:0 benefits will fix their configuration.
>
> Likely there are many other warts that can be removed if there is a 
> version upgrade.

Which of the several meanings of "sniffing" are you talking about exactly?

AYJ