Re: [hybi] comments on draft-ietf-hybi-websocket-requirements-00

[Willy Tarreau <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 07:44:39PM +0900, "Martin J. Dürst" wrote:
> On 2010/07/12 19:10, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> 
> >Not to me. The main reason we are discussing what "HTTP compatible"
> >means and how the "HTTP handshake" ought to look is because someone at
> >IANA thought WebSocket should share a port with HTTP. It has nothing
> >much to do with the charter. And frankly, it seems like things might be
> >much easier if we did not share a port with HTTP.
> 
> I agree. Ports, especially those below 1024, are scare, so it's quite 
> understandable that IANA was reluctant to allocate a new port number for 
> an individual or a third-party organization. But we are an IETF WG. If 
> we decide that we better use a separate port for websockets, we just say 
> so in the spec, and some time between now and when the spec is published 
> as an RFC, IANA will tell us what port number we get. For details, 
> please see http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2780.
> 
> There are some good reasons to reuse the http ports, but there are also 
> some good reasons to not do so.

In my opinion we should distinguish the *need* for reusing HTTP ports from
the need to use a separate ports. Those are two distinct things. The reuse
of the HTTP port is for the port, but not only, it's also for everything
belonging to HTTP (URL switching, virtual hosting, etc...). For this reason
it seems urgent to define the protocol as if the port was dedicated to it,
and then define how it can be upgraded from standard HTTP.

Regards,
Willy