"John Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Daniel Rall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
>> Right -- that the XML-RPC specifiction is frozen is a huge mistake.
>> AFAIK, an HTTP/1.1 server is fully backwards compatible with HTTP/1.0,
>> and offers many enhancments that would be directly applicable to any
>> data tunnelled through it (such as XML-RPC).  It makes zero sense to
>> not support these enhancements when support can be added without
>> breaking backwards compatibility.  The server should speak 1.1 to
>> clients that announce support for it, and 1.0 for clients that do not.
>
>     I don't speak for Dave Winer but this is my understanding of the
> situation: Dave (or his company) owns the trademark XML-RPC. Dave (or his
> company) owns the copyright to the XML-RPC spec. Dave will let people use
> the XML-RPC trademark if they implement the spec (this is logically a bit
> difficult as the spec is unclear in many places and contradicts the XML spec
> in at least one place). Dave will let people make changes to and build
> extensions on the XML-RPC spec as long as they don't call it XML-RPC.

Right, I read this last time you posted it too.  ;-)

(And thanks for that, I was not aware of the information at the time
or your original post.)

> The reality is that many implementations make quiet extensions to the spec
> (for example the Apache XML-RPC implementation handles the Latin-1 character
> set, the spec (almost) requires ASCII). As long as they don't make a fuss
> about this then Dave leaves them alone. Dave gets unhappy if people do high
> profile things like implement <null/>.

I have no personal interest in null.  I'm interested in a RPC server
with reasonable performance when handling large quantities of data.

> Dave, like all of us, is not 100% consistent in the judgements he expresses.
> However he has been remarkably consistent in maintaining the above position
> for a couple of years now.
>
> The Apache project has a high profile and a well deserved reputation for
> respecting intellectual property. It appears to me that you should consider
> carefully before adding extension to your XML-RPC implementation.

My last message never indicated I was going to do this with the Apache
implementation.

However, I may end up modifying (at least) the server code to support
HTTP/1.1 in addition to supporting the primitive XML-RPC specification
(togglable).  I will definitely contribute any such changes back to
the ASF, inclusion of which will be dealt with as per the Jakarta
decision guidelines <http://jakarta.apache.org/site/decisions.html>.

For a quick HTTP/1.1 start, the bundled proxy Servlet would plug into
Tomcat for Chunk Transfer Coding support (I know that Catalina has
full support for this).

> I do sympathise most deeply with your frustration, however;)

Thanks John.

- Dan

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