Re: MDMA server at UNC/SunSITE is broken

John Franks (john@math.nwu.edu)
Wed, 14 Sep 94 20:29:40 CDT

In article <9409141743.aa03655@paris.ics.uci.edu>,
Roy T. Fielding <fielding@avron.ICS.UCI.EDU, www-talk@info.cern.ch> wrote:
>
>The MDMA server that was just installed at http://sunsite.unc.edu/ is broken.
>
>Why it is broken:
>
...
> 2) Fails to include a Date: header on responses. This header is necessary
> for cache management.
>

Can you explain this? If the Date: is just the current time doesn't the
client/proxy server know it as well as the server.

...
>
> 4) Does not support the If-Modified-Since header (conditional GET protocol)
> that allows for efficient cache updates.
>

This may be a "good thing", but it is not in the HTTP/1.0 spec and hence
a server claiming to be HTTP/1.0 shouldn't be called broken for that
reason.

I think some of your other criticisms have merit. In addition it would
be nice if the server identified itself with a Server: header.