Subject: [Errata Rejected] RFC7232 (5236)

From: RFC Errata System <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2020 05:39:10 -0700 (PDT)

The following errata report has been rejected for RFC7232,
"Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Conditional Requests".

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You may review the report below and at:
https://www.rfc-editor.org/errata/eid5236

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Status: Rejected
Type: Technical

Reported by: Chris Pacejo <[email-masked]>
Date Reported: 2018-01-16
Rejected by: Barry Leiba (IESG)

Section: 2.1

Original Text
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Likewise, a validator is weak if it is shared by two or more
representations of a given resource at the same time, unless those
representations have identical representation data.  For example, if
the origin server sends the same validator for a representation with
a gzip content coding applied as it does for a representation with no
content coding, then that validator is weak.  However, two
simultaneous representations might share the same strong validator if
they differ only in the representation metadata, such as when two
different media types are available for the same representation data.

Corrected Text
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Likewise, a validator is weak if it is shared by two or more
representations of a given resource at the same time, even if those
representations have identical representation data.  For example, if
the origin server sends the same validator for a representation with
a gzip content coding applied as it does for a representation with no
content coding, then that validator is weak.

Notes
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This paragraph (and only this paragraph) seems to be in direct conflict with this earlier text from the same section:

"However, if a resource has distinct representations that differ only in their metadata, such as might occur with content negotiation over media types that happen to share the same data format, then the origin server needs to incorporate additional information in the [strong] validator to distinguish those representations."
 --VERIFIER NOTES-- 
   There is not a conflict here: The text quoted in the notes needs to be read in the context of the entire paragraph it appears in, which the "however" references.  The quoted statement is being made in the context of generating strong validators based only upon the message body, when the headers might also change.

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RFC7232 (draft-ietf-httpbis-p4-conditional-26)
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Title               : Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Conditional Requests
Publication Date    : June 2014
Author(s)           : R. Fielding, Ed., J. Reschke, Ed.
Category            : PROPOSED STANDARD
Source              : Hypertext Transfer Protocol Bis APP
Area                : Applications
Stream              : IETF
Verifying Party     : IESG