Re: File upload in HTML forms

Paul Ramsey (pramsey@makitso.com)
Sat, 24 Sep 94 11:51:52 PDT

While I can imagine that being able to send files might be useful the
method you describe sounds like a dramatic shift in the architecture of the
WWW. Currently the HTTP protocol is a client/server model, a client
establishes a connection, sends a request, gets a response, and shuts down the
connection. Each time you select a link this process is repeated. You're
proposing that clients start behaving like servers to allow remote WWW sites
make requests for files. On a unix system this is security problem you're
unlikely to get through very many firewalls with such a request. On many
other systems this is also impractical because the software isn't really
set up to handle transactions that are initiated by another system.

Any real solution will need to stay within the stateless environment of the
current HTTP protocol.

paul ramsey