Note: This working group is jointly chartered by the Applications Area and the Transport Services Area. The HTTP Working Group will work on the specification of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). HTTP is a data access protocol currently run over TCP and is the basis of the World-Wide Web. The initial work will be to document existing practice and short-term extensions. Subsequent work will be to extend and revise the protocol. Directions which have already been mentioned include: o improved efficiency, o extended operations, o extended negotiation, o richer metainformation, and o ties with security protocols. Note: the HTTP working group will not address HTTP security extensions as these are expected to be the topic of another working group. Background information The initial specification of the HTTP protocol was kept in hypertext form and a snapshot circulated as an Internet draft between 11/93 and 5/94. A revision of the specification by Berners-Lee, Fielding and Frystyk Nielsen has been circulated as an Internet draft between 11/94 and 5/95. An overview of the state of the specifications and a repository of pointers to HTTP resources may be found at http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Protocols/Overview.html Once established, the working group will expand and complete that document to reflect HTTP/1.0 as it has been implemented by World-Wide Web clients and servers prior to November 1994. The resulting specification of HTTP/1.0 will be published for review as an Internet-Draft and, if deemed appropriate, will be submitted to the IESG for consideration as a Proposed Standard or Informational RFC. In parallel with the above effort, the working group will consider enhancements/restrictions to the current practice in order to form a specification of the HTTP protocol suitable for eventual consideration as a proposed standard. Also in parallel with the above efforts, the working group will engage in defining (or selecting from various definitions) a next-generation protocol for hypertext transfer (HTTPng). A description of HTTP/1.0 as it is generally practiced currently on the Internet has been submitted to become an Informational RFC. The working group is considering enhancements/restrictions to the current practice in order to form a specification of the HTTP protocol suitable for eventual consideration as a proposed standard.