Re: Proposed charter, please comment

[Mark Nottingham <mnot@akamai.com>]

"Web" is an information space, not a protocol. How you access the
information (i.e., protocol, as well as the nature of your
user-agent) is incidental. URI comes much closer to defining it that
HTTP.

This is why WEBI is Web Intermediaries - "HTTP" is to specific,
"Internet" is too general. "Web" scopes the problem space nicely -
rather than trying to describe the scope of the group with a term
that denotes technology, we used a term that conveys the use of the
technology.



On Fri, Jan 26, 2001 at 11:20:52AM +0100, John Martin wrote:
> Actually we agree in fact if not in the wording. When I read "Web-based", 
> that (to me) excludes RTSP, MMS et al. If consensus is that "web-based" 
> means more than just HTTP, that's fine, but I'd like to see mention of both 
> "static and continuous media" somewhere, just to be sure.
> 
> John
> At 11:44 AM 25/01/01 -0500, Mark Day wrote:
> > > >A content network is an architecture of Web-based network
> > > >elements, arranged
> > > >for efficient delivery of digital content.
> > >
> > > Why Web-based? Does that exclude non-HTTP objects? Actually, if you just
> > > remove the phrase "Web-based", this reads just fine (to me).
> >
> >While technically correct, I worry that this moves us in the wrong direction
> >(increasing generality).  I consider it quite important that the working
> >group focus on the problems of delivering content within the frameworks of
> >DNS, HTTP, RTSP, etc. as they exist now.
> >
> >For example, I think it would be a tremendous waste of time to use this
> >group to develop a system for interoperation of content networks that
> >required replacing the existing protocol infrastructure of the web. That
> >could well be a worthy and fun project, but it would be a research project
> >as opposed to a standards project.
> >
> >Now, I'm pretty sure that you're not trying to get us to do that, but I want
> >to be sure that the charter rules it out.  I would be happy with more
> >careful phrasing, and perhaps we need to catalog the things that we will not
> >do instead of relying on the fuzzy phrase "Web-based." But I am wary of
> >broadening the scope to any arrangement of network elements that delivers
> >content efficiently.
> >
> >--Mark
> 
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-- 
Mark Nottingham, Research Scientist
Akamai Technologies (San Mateo, CA)