On HTTP/1.1 and the IETF process...

["Robert S. Thau" <rs...@ai.mit.edu>]

Regarding the state of HTTP/1.1 and the way things stand, please
remember that this text is not "final and for all time" yet --- even
if draft-05 is issued as a Proposed Standard, there is still room for
clarification of anything that's particularly murky right now in the
edits between Proposed and Draft Standard, should the WG feel that it
is required.

Especially with that background, I've got to concur with Roy.  When
one of the editorial group was kind enough to ask me whether I saw any
showstopper problems with the current text, I listed a few real
problems --- most quite a bit more troublesome than any problem that
may or may not exist in the handling of clock skew --- and then said,
in effect, "None of this matters.  Ship it."

That's not to say that the draft is perfect --- but we could all
hammer away at it for another five years and we still wouldn't have a
perfect draft.  Perfection is simply not an option in any human
endeavor.  However, there comes a time when the costs of deciding to
declare the thing finished and live with its imperfections are less
than the costs of delay --- and as far as I'm concerned, especially in
the light of the IESG's apparent impatience with the HTTP-WG in
general, and the clear need for some kind of guidance to avoid chaos
in the marketplace, that point has been reached with draft-05.

rst