Apache HTTP folks,

> I have no problem with making httpclient-cache compatible with Android
> but at the same time I think users we should be encouraging Android
> users to migrate to the latest release of HttpClient nonetheless.

I'm the 
maintainer<http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/09/androids-http-clients.html>of
Android's HTTP clients. Android's non-adoption of new versions of
Apache
HTTP client is my decision, but it hasn't been an easy one.

We made a mistake early on by exposing the full Apache HTTP client
API—including
impl<http://developer.android.com/reference/org/apache/http/impl/cookie/package-summary.html>packages
—in Android's API. This makes upgrading Apache HTTP client risky as I have
to avoid breaking applications. It also adds a burden on application
developers who would need to test their applications against multiple
releases of Apache HTTP client to support multiple releases of Android. The
rich API means there's many moving parts to test.

If I could put the genie back in the bottle I would not have exposed Apache
HTTP as a public API in Android. It's a great API, but our including it the
platform locks everyone into an old build that we grabbed back in 2008.
It's much simpler for developers to pick a single release, test it, and
bundle it. For this reason I recommend that developers looking for new
Apache HTTP features follow Oleg's advice and repackage Apache HTTP in
their application.

Or use HttpURLConnection, which I've spent a lot of time on lately. There's
even an HTTP response cache in Ice Cream Sandwich.

Thanks Oleg & Apache HTTP client contributors. It's powerful software that
gets lots of exercise on Android.

Thanks,
Jesse

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