Re: [ogpx] user agents vs client apps

SM <sm@resistor.net> Wed, 10 March 2010 07:21 UTC

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Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:20:58 -0800
To: kmancuso@gmail.com
From: SM <sm@resistor.net>
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Cc: ogpx@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [ogpx] user agents vs client apps
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Hi Katherine,
At 14:57 06-03-10, Katherine Mancuso wrote:
>I don't know about IETF protocols, but I'd like to point out that the
>W3C uses user agent to include both your "client applications
>category"  of browsers, media rendering plugins, mobile browsers and
>other programs that display content directly to humans AND bots, web
>spiders, and other automated crawlers.

 From RFC 2616:

  "user agent - the client which initiates a request. These are often browsers,
   editors, spiders (web-traversing robots), or other end user tools."

>I would be curious to have citations for user agent in the IETF
>literature so we can establish how the term is used for other
>protocols.  I know that SIP refers to both its endpoints as user
>agents.  Anyone?

Variants of the term are used in several specifications (mail, 
calendering, XMPP, HTTP, etc).  A user agent is an application.  It 
might be software acting on behalf of a human.

Is the distinction necessary in a virtual world? :-)

Regards,
-sm