Re: Worst Error Message?

[Rafael Heise <rm...@gmail.com>]

Ok. I'll try to explain how HTTP protocols works.
There are some protocols to make the internet work properly, and we call it
HTTP PROTOCOL. So, when you are working with HTTP protocol you HAVE TO obey
this protocols, so ANY client can read it and the client will understant it.
As you can read on this website: h
ttp://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html<http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html>
you
can see in the section 10.4.4 that the error 403 is the error message when
an authorization is necessary.
So, as you can see, there is an organization called W3C (http://www.w3.org)
and it defines the protocols that everyone needs to use in the network, and
the SVN needs to apply it too.
So, in my opinion, if someone thinks that is necessary to change it, to make
it more readable for users or I-don't-know-what-else-reason, this person can
send an e-mail to W3C and try to change it. I agree that every error message
MUST BE so readable as possible, to fix it easier. When the error message
means something, the user that read the message can do something. Or better,
the error message should show someway to fix the problem. But we are not
talking about the software in the client-side. We are talking about a
server, and it must respect the protocols.

And everybody needs to agree: everyone who try to google it will find what
403-Forbidden message means.

And Jeremy Pereira, you're right. If there is a workaround there is a
security fail and someone needs to do something to fix it. But as a network
adminstrator you WILL NEVER want to show it to everybody until you can fix
it. Or would you like to open your network to someone who knows some exploit
to explore your data? Do you prefer to shutdown the server until someone fix
it? As an open source solution, you can't call to someone and ask to fix it.
You just need to wait. When you'll have to administrate some network you
will understand what exactly I'm try to explain when I say that the
403-Forbidden message is a good message. And if you prefer mercurial you are
free to use it. You are not paying anything to use SVN server, I guess. I
don't think that is really necessary to change the message because in my
opinion this is not a real problem.

Rafael M. Heise

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Les Mikesell <le...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7/31/11 3:24 PM, Jeremy Pereira wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Telling somebody that they only have read access to a repository is not
>> giving them a hint about how to work around it.  "403 forbidden" is not
>> telling somebody that they only have read access to a repository (or part of
>> a repository).  It's telling them that a web server somewhere doesn't like
>> them.  "What a web server?  I thought I was using subversion" says the user.
>>
>
> It is telling them that the administrator of the repository configured it
> so the login they are using does not have permission to commit there.  What
> more do you need to know?  If it is accidental you have to contact the
> administrator to correct it.  If it is intentional, you have to contact the
> administrator to get your login authorized.  If you are the administrator
> you know what you have to do.
>
>
> --
>  Les Mikesell
>    lesmikesell@gmail.com
>
>

Re: Worst Error Message?

[Nico Kadel-Garcia <nk...@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Jul 31, 2011 at 11:33 PM, Rafael Heise <rm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok. I'll try to explain how HTTP protocols works.
> There are some protocols to make the internet work properly, and we call it
> HTTP PROTOCOL. So, when you are working with HTTP protocol you HAVE TO obey
> this protocols, so ANY client can read it and the client will understant it.
> As you can read on this website:
> http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html you can see in the
> section 10.4.4 that the error 403 is the error message when an authorization
> is necessary.

And that's all fine. It's somewhat confusing for clients. It would
seem perfectly reasonable for the HTTP client, in this case
subversion, to give a more meaningful message. Since this error is
particularly common with subversion commit operations, perhaps a
followup saying "perhaps you lack write permission?" to go with such
HTTP error messages would seem very reasonable.