ietf-openproxy
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Re: iCAP, OPES and the IETF

2001-06-08 00:25:13
On Tue, Jun 05, 2001 at 09:59:21PM +0200, John Martin wrote:
 From rfc-index.txt:

1945 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.0. T. Berners-Lee, R.
      Fielding, H. Frystyk. May 1996. (Format: TXT=137582 bytes) (Status:
      INFORMATIONAL)

Please note, however, that I published the first draft of HTTP/1.1 in
August of 1995.  1.0 was expected to be a Proposed Standard up until that
point.  RFC 1945 consisted of the interoperable subset of over 100 independent
implementations claiming to use HTTP/1.0.

2068 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1. R. Fielding, J. Gettys,
      J. Mogul, H. Frystyk, T. Berners-Lee. January 1997. (Format:
      TXT=378114 bytes) (Obsoleted by RFC2616) (Status: PROPOSED STANDARD)

Having experienced this detour personally, I don't recommend it unless
you have an objective definition of what must be in iCAP 1.0.

The problem with iCAP as it stands right now is that the specification does
not match anyone's implementation, let alone multiple independent ones.  It
will take some work to determine which of the various implementations got
it right, and yet more work before the written description matches what has
been implemented.  I didn't see that getting done any more effectively in
the iCAP forum than it did in the IETF pre-group discussions.

As such, I don't think iCAP is ready for publication as any sort of RFC.
The problem isn't the standards process being slow.  The specification
simply doesn't exist in a form that can be standardized, and won't until
the editors make their implementations public and focus effort on matching
the descriptions to actual (not imagined) examples.  That is how the IETF
specification process is supposed to work.

ECMA is not an appropriate standards body for an Internet protocol.
Even if they were to rubber-stamp something, I would ignore it as nothing
more than marketing rubbish.  If that's all you care for, then save us
all the effort and just publish the spec on a website and declare it an
open proprietary protocol.


Cheers,

Roy T. Fielding, Chief Scientist, eBuilt, Inc.
                 2652 McGaw Avenue
                 Irvine, CA 92614-5840  fax:+1.949.609.0001
                 (fielding(_at_)ebuilt(_dot_)com)  <http://www.eBuilt.com>

                 Chairman, The Apache Software Foundation
                 (fielding(_at_)apache(_dot_)org)  <http://www.apache.org/>


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