Re: "Hits" pragma

Paul Burchard (burchard@horizon.cs.princeton.edu)
Sat, 12 Aug 95 18:50:11 -0400


Brian Behlendorf <brian@organic.com> writes:
> What would the proxy administrator get out of this? Well,
> the more info that can be forwarded, the more likely
> content providers will start putting useful Expires in
> their documents. Web protocols of course should not be
> designed around "who's more selfish", but hopefully
> there's a common ground that can be reached.

Finding this common ground is the crucial point. Could you perhaps
whittle your "wish list" of reporting information down to a
"requirements list" or even a "prevention of open rebellion list"?

My main point is that there _is_ a way to start a positive feedback
loop and get out of this prisoners' dilemma ("who's more selfish"):

(1) merge reporting into the ordinary, profit-making operations
of the proxy (by forwarding "bundled" requests).

(2) make sure adoption of such reporting by major proxies will act
as a positive incentive for servers to start using Expires
correctly (if you use Expires right you get periodic reports
automatically, while if you don't you get blocked!).

I put forward the simplest possible backwards-compatible scheme of
this sort, in the hopes of getting _something_ started. But if the
"open rebellion list" includes more than hit counts, we will
probably need to include some additional "bundled reporting"
features.

> *every* client of ours wants stats as to the busiest time
> of day for their sites

I don't get it....isn't the point of electronic commerce to break
out of the constraints of space and time that limit ordinary
commerce?

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Burchard <burchard@cs.princeton.edu>
``I'm still learning how to count backwards from infinity...''
--------------------------------------------------------------------