Proposed minor spec changes, for comment.

[Luke Emmet]

On 21-May-2020 22:17, Martin Keegan wrote:
> On Thu, 21 May 2020, solderpunk wrote:
>
>> We basically need to choose between forcing server authors to normalise
>> all endings to CRLF or forcing client authors to recgonise LF (even
>> though it'll probably never be seen in the wild).
>
> Could we have a bit of a breather to allow the implications to sink 
> in, and, critically, to allow the development of conformance testing 
> tools?
>
> If there were a tool which could be run on a document, that confirmed 
> that it was conformant, and a similar tool for server behaviour, and 
> people had had some time to try to integrate these with the existing 
> software, it'd be easier to assess the tradeoffs involved in the spec 
> decision.

I would think Postels rule should pragmatically apply to line endings in 
the response body, but the spec should definitely be very specific about 
line endings in any headers (as is http). But those are generated by the 
server anyway.

If we force one line ending kind on authors, it will be a deterrent to 
them forging ahead with writing user content if they have to use some 
tool just to be able to get the content onto the server. Look at XHTML, 
it was a resounding failure and rejected by authors even though there 
were some good (and ill conceived) intentions of the spec writers.

Best Wishes

  - Luke