Subject: IETF77 meeting minutes

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:12:55 +0200

FYI (and thanks to our scribe Martin!):

-- minutes start here --

HTTPBIS WG
IETF 77

Issues: 
http://svn.tools.ietf.org/svn/wg/httpbis/wg_materials/ietf77/ietf-77-httpbis-issues.xhtml
Changes (07->09): 
http://svn.tools.ietf.org/svn/wg/httpbis/wg_materials/ietf77/ietf-77-httpbis.xhtml

Agenda and other info: http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/agenda

XMPP log: http://www.ietf.org/jabber/logs/httpbis/2010-03-22.txt
Archived audio stream: 
http://limestone.uoregon.edu/ftp/pub/videolab/media/ietf77/ietf77-ch6-mon-afnoon2.mp3

==Agenda bash

JeffH might take a few minutes to present security properties

==Changes overview (link above)

Two drafts since Stockholm; changes summarized

Yves: w3c is considering using time ranges as a custom range unit (re 
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/150)

==Open issues (link above)

Things that are currently being discussed - age calculation (new 
algorithm, please check it, see 
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/29), URI fragments in 
redirection (media type specific?, please provide input, see 
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/43), response code 
caching (which codes can be cached?, see 
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/110), sniffing (see 
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/155), effective 
request URI (see http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/196)

Yves: fragment processing depends on media type, so do we need to 
address this in the registration of URI types that allow for fragments?

Yves: (security for sniffing) add text that says that ignoring the 
content-type is done at the risk of those who do it, as advisory/warning

Julian: and the "sniffing" draft

Yves: we'll have to talk to Adam about that

Alexey: "sniffing" is not well-understood outside this context

jeffh: on effective URI - is this work justified? (see definition in 
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2009Sep/att-0051/draft-hodges-strict-transport-sec-05.plain.html)

Julian: we needed a name and your name fit (on xmpp: Mark agrees)

Pending issues

Jamshid Mahdavi: has implemented deflate and can explain the problem, 
not sure about a solution (see 
http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/73)

Mark: proposal is to note that implementations do send deflate without 
zlib wrappers

Yves: methods and caching, but this (139) is about the story the spec 
has to say when we decided to use method+URI as the key for caches 
(which is a clarification over rfc2616 caching text)

(See XMPP logs for more discussion on this point)

Location header and its handling; Julian proposes to consider non-URI 
values in Location (such as whitespace) to continue to be errors, and to 
be subject to (undefined) error handling.

==Security properties 
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-security-properties-05

Referencing the "Overall Issue" in the draft

JeffH: the issue is whether this doc is either a collection of 
peer-entity authentication mechanisms and picking a mandatory to 
implement set thereof; or if it is intended to be a collection of the 
nastier security problems (or cross-specification ones)

Robert Sayre: Can't add MTI (mandatory-to-implement) mechanisms by charter

JeffH: if this is a description of the mechanisms that are actually 
used, this spec is poorly named

Robert: this is authn, because it's not revising 2617

Lisa: expanding might be good to avoid problems with IESG review; 
describing the problems is useful; wants all included, if possible

JeffH: the name change is only necessary if the scope is constrained to 
authn

Lisa: authent is a potential hotspot for argument, might need to 
trade-off time investment against potential benefit

Barry: this might be a good place for the cross-document security 
considerations or the stuff common to each, those things that don't fit 
the individual drafts

Joe H: we don't write security considerations just to placate the IESG

==RFC2231 in HTTP (see 
http://svn.tools.ietf.org/svn/wg/httpbis/wg_materials/ietf77/ietf-77-http2231.xhtml)

Problem with Content-Disposition and I18n

In IETF LC

NedF: making this separate from 2231 is a good idea, it's not time to 
revise 2231

Ned: apologizing for 2231 shortcomings

jck: profiling things out is right, agrees with Ned

Julian: utf-8 would be nice for HTTP, but it's not possible

ChrisN: don't allow for multiple language variants, profile that out

Julian: send this to LC

Ned and jck: agrees with Chris

jck: the security consideration relating to comparison of utf-8 strings 
needs to be addressed, but it's not clear what this spec needs to include

Alexey: spec revision needed

Julian: profiling lang variants out is used in an RFC (link header), so 
profiling that out might be hard

Ned: in practice, that's probably not a problem; no implementations, 
though there might be in the HTTP world

jck: this looked like a good idea at the time, but it didn't work out; 
reiterates Ned

Mark: implementers might have felt that it was too complex

Ned: 2231 doesn't say anything about having multiple language flags, 
might be difficult to include based on syntax definition

Julian shows example from link header draft -08: wrong draft, it's in 
the draft being discussed, Section 4.3

Ned: might be a problem, but it's a legitimate use case that's being 
demonstrated, can't object based on this

jck: nervous, but potential problems with the bindings between the 
parameters and various over header values

Yngve: this might cause problems (mentions accept-language)

Ned: need good guidance on how this is used and how it interacts with 
similar features of the language

Mark: http already has multiple ways of doing such things and there is 
no guidance given there

Julian: this will affect the link header draft which is long past LC

Alexey: we can do another LC if we need to

==Closing Discussion

Alexey: when is httpbis going to close

Julian: we have been slow, but plan to finish this summer, we will plan 
to meet in Maastrict

Lisa: HTTP PATCH is now an RFC

==WebDAV ideas

http://trac.tools.ietf.org/area/app/trac/wiki/DavFuture

Julian: might charter a WG for this

Cyrus: caldav carddav deployments are demanding more performance and 
some features

Alexey: try to organize a bof