Subject: Update on issue 155 (Content Sniffing)

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:28:37 +0200

Hi,

we discussed the issue of content sniffing again during the HTTPbis WG 
meeting and the general feeling was that we were going to far with the 
statement:

"Note that neither the interpretation of the data type of a message nor 
the behaviors caused by it are defined by HTTP; this potentially 
includes examination of the content to override any indicated type 
("sniffing")."

The proposal is to remove this altogether.

See <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/155#comment:3>

Feedback appreciated,

Julian

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From: "Anne van Kesteren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:34:25 +0200

> See <http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/155#comment:3>

This would disallow e.g. the behavior of <img src> or <script src> as exhibited by Web browsers as I understand things. Having said that, notes are typically non-normative so maybe it does not?

-- 
Anne van Kesteren
http://annevankesteren.nl/

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From: Henrik Nordstrom <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:39:17 +0200

> The proposal is to remove this altogether.

+1.

We tell the media type of the message data (if any known) indicating how
it should be interpreted. After that it's the user-agents responsibility
to deal with it respectfully for display or whatever purpose. This is
obvious and non-controversial but also completely unneeded to state
here. The second part that mentions sniffing is just bad as it kind of
implies that general sniffing is allowed which is not what we intend
(but also none of our business).

Regards
Henrik

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From: Adam Barth <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:50:50 -0700

> This would disallow e.g. the behavior of <img src> or <script src> as exhibited by Web browsers as I understand things. Having said that, notes are typically non-normative so maybe it does not?

Maybe we ought to say:

"Note that neither the interpretation of the data type of a message
nor the behaviors caused by it are defined by HTTP."

No one seems to be arguing about this statement, but it's non-obvious
to folks reading the spec and therefore worth noting,

Adam