Re: Straw-man for our next charter

[Adam Barth <[e-mail]>]

>From the charter:

---8<---
Changes to the existing semantics of HTTP are out of scope in order to
preserve the meaning of messages that might cross a 1.1 --> 2.0 --> 1.1
request chain.
--->8---

http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/charter/

Changing how user agents interpret the Content-Type header would change the
semantics of HTTP and are therefore out of scope for HTTP/2.0 according to
our current charter.

Adam


On Sat, Jul 28, 2012 at 8:01 AM, Larry Masinter <[e-mail]> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>