Subject: Scope of body in an OPTIONS response

From: Nathan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 20:56:52 +0100

Hi All,

I've noticed a tendency in a few web circles to stuff ever increasing 
amounts of information in to Response Headers, especially via the 'Link' 
header.

Thus, I'm scoping how much of this information (if any) would be better 
located in the message-body of a response to an OPTIONS request.

Specific examples are:

Linking to alternative versions of a resource

Exposing which mime types are available via content negotiation

Exposing the URI of an ACL file attached to the resource

Defining a URI which should be used to modify a resource via PUT/DELETE 
etc (eg where a resource is exposed over both http:// and https:// and 
unsafe operations must be performed over https)

Linking to metadata about the resource (such as a human or machine 
readable description of an gif image).

If the answer is 'none of the above' could you give (or point to) a good 
example of a message-body in response to OPTIONS.

Many Regards in advance,

Nathan