Hypertext Transfer Protocol Bis (httpbis) ----------------------------------------- Charter Last Modified: 2011-04-05 Current Status: Active Working Group Chair(s): Mark Nottingham Applications Area Director(s): Pete Resnick Alexey Melnikov Peter Saint-Andre Applications Area Advisor: Peter Saint-Andre Mailing Lists: General Discussion:ietf-http-wg@w3.org To Subscribe: ietf-http-wg-request@w3.org In Body: subscribe Archive: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/ Description of Working Group: HTTP is one of the most successful and widely-used protocols on the Internet today. However, its specification has several editorial issues. Additionally, after years of implementation and extension, several ambiguities have become evident, impairing interoperability and the ability to easily implement and use HTTP. The working group will refine RFC2616 to: * Incorporate errata and updates (e.g., references, IANA registries, ABNF) * Fix editorial problems which have led to misunderstandings of the specification * Clarify conformance requirements * Remove known ambiguities where they affect interoperability * Clarify existing methods of extensibility * Remove or deprecate those features that are not widely implemented and also unduly affect interoperability * Where necessary, add implementation advice * Document the security properties of HTTP and its associated mechanisms (e.g., Basic and Digest authentication, cookies, TLS) for common applications It will also incorporate the generic authentication framework from RFC 2617, without obsoleting or updating that specification's definition of the Basic and Digest schemes. Finally, it will incorporate relevant portions of RFC 2817 (in particular, the CONNECT method and advice on the use of Upgrade), so that that specification can be moved to Historic status. In doing so, it should consider: * Implementer experience * Demonstrated use of HTTP * Impact on existing implementations and deployments The Working Group must not introduce a new version of HTTP and should not add new functionality to HTTP. The WG is not tasked with producing new methods, headers, or extension mechanisms, but may introduce new protocol elements if necessary as part of revising existing functionality which has proven to be problematic. The Working Group's specification deliverables are: * A document (or set of documents) that is suitable to supersede RFC 2616 and move RFC 2817 to Historic status * A document cataloguing the security properties of HTTP Goals and Milestones: Done First HTTP Revision Internet Draft Done First HTTP Security Properties Internet Draft Nov 2010 Request Last Call for HTTP Revision Nov 2010 Request Last Call for HTTP Security Properties Apr 2011 Submit HTTP Revision to IESG for consideration as a Draft Standard Apr 2011 Submit HTTP Security Properties to IESG for consideration as Informational Internet-Drafts: Posted Revised I-D Title ------ ------- -------------------------------------------- Dec 2007 Mar 2011 HTTP/1.1, part 1: URIs, Connections, and Message Parsing Dec 2007 Mar 2011 HTTP/1.1, part 7: Authentication Dec 2007 Mar 2011 HTTP/1.1, part 6: Caching Dec 2007 Mar 2011 HTTP/1.1, part 5: Range Requests and Partial Responses Dec 2007 Mar 2011 HTTP/1.1, part 4: Conditional Requests Dec 2007 Mar 2011 HTTP/1.1, part 3: Message Payload and Content Negotiation Dec 2007 Mar 2011 HTTP/1.1, part 2: Message Semantics Aug 2008 Jan 2011 Initial Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Method Registrations Sep 2010 Mar 2011 Use of the Content-Disposition Header Field in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Nov 2010 Nov 2010 Initial Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Authentication Scheme Registrations Request For Comments: None to date.