Subject: Protocol Action: On the use of HTTP as a Substrate for Other Protocols to BCP

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2001 13:53:13 -0500

The IESG has approved the Internet-Draft 'On the use of HTTP as a
Substrate for Other Protocols' <draft-moore-using-http-01.txt> as a
BCP.  This has been reviewed in the IETF but is not the product of an
IETF Working Group.

The IESG contact persons are Patrik Faltstrom and Ned Freed.

Technical Summary
 
There has been widespread interest in using Hypertext Transport Protocol
(HTTP) as a substrate for other applications-level protocols.  This
document recommends technical particulars of such use, including use of
default ports, URL schemes, and HTTP security mechanisms.

Working Group Summary

The document is not a product of any IETF working group. It has been
discussed on many mailing lists, including the main IETF list.

The W3C have discussed the document, and the response from W3C can be
found as http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-dist-app/2000Dec/0061.html.
The IESG notices the input from the W3C, but, find the points on lack of
more specific information on what is appropriate or not not being something
that makes the document clearer. The IESG finds the goal of this document is
to raise issues, and not specifically answer all questions.

Protocol Quality

The spec was reviewed by Patrik Faltstrom.