Subject: [Errata Rejected] RFC7234 (5564)

From: RFC Errata System <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 08:26:57 -0700 (PDT)

The following errata report has been rejected for RFC7234,
"Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Caching".

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You may review the report below and at:
http://www.rfc-editor.org/errata/eid5564

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Status: Rejected
Type: Technical

Reported by: Bruce Adams <[email-masked]>
Date Reported: 2018-11-27
Rejected by: Alexey Melnikov (IESG)

Section: 4.2.4

Original Text
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A cache MUST NOT send stale responses unless it is disconnected
   (i.e., it cannot contact the origin server or otherwise find a
   forward path) or doing so is explicitly allowed (e.g., by the
   max-stale request directive; see Section 5.2.1).

Corrected Text
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A cache SHOULD NOT send stale responses unless it is disconnected
   (i.e., it cannot contact the origin server or otherwise find a
   forward path) or doing so is explicitly allowed (e.g., by the
   max-stale request directive; see Section 5.2.1).

A cache MAY send stale responses if a cache-control extension for
stale content such as "stale-while-revalidate" is used 
(see RFC5861).

Notes
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The original text seems to conflict with https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5861#section-3

3.  The stale-while-revalidate Cache-Control Extension

   When present in an HTTP response, the stale-while-revalidate Cache-
   Control extension indicates that caches MAY serve the response in
   which it appears after it becomes stale, up to the indicated number
   of seconds.

     stale-while-revalidate = "stale-while-revalidate" "=" delta-seconds

   If a cached response is served stale due to the presence of this
   extension, the cache SHOULD attempt to revalidate it while still
   serving stale responses (i.e., without blocking).

See also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53324538/rest-low-latency-how-should-i-reply-to-a-get-while-an-upload-is-pending
 --VERIFIER NOTES-- 
Mark Nottingham wrote:

Extensions are explicitly allowed to override requirements, and
making this a SHOULD would be too confusing (as many would read it as
"optional").

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RFC7234 (draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-26)
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Title               : Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Caching
Publication Date    : June 2014
Author(s)           : R. Fielding, Ed., M. Nottingham, Ed., J. Reschke, Ed.
Category            : PROPOSED STANDARD
Source              : Hypertext Transfer Protocol Bis APP
Area                : Applications
Stream              : IETF
Verifying Party     : IESG