[e2e] e2e principle..where??....

[Roy T. Fielding]

On Fri, Jun 01, 2001 at 08:45:48PM -0400, Manish Karir wrote:
> 
> with the vast majority of traffic these days being web traffic
> (thought I saw some stats somewhere measuring (90+% to be http traffic)
> AND combined with the extremly high web cache deployment rate(ever 
> hear of an ISP who does not use a web cache to maximize the number 
> of users he can support),
> one wonders what the e2e priniciple really means these days.....???

The same as it did when SMTP became a common mechanism for store-and-forward
messaging.  Application protocols embed application semantics in order
to preserve those semantics across multiple intermediaries.

HTTP places application semantics within every message in order to make
them visible to intermediaries, thus preserving end-to-end principles
when the protocol is used faithfully.  HTTP breaks when applications
attempt to use it for semantics other than what is identified within
the HTTP message.  I don't see this as a contradiction to e2e, because
I never see HTTP as a transport protocol (even when it is abused as such).

Cheers,

Roy T. Fielding, Chief Scientist, eBuilt, Inc.
                 2652 McGaw Avenue
                 Irvine, CA 92614-5840  fax:+1.949.609.0001
                 (fielding at ebuilt.com)  <http://www.eBuilt.com>

                 Chairman, The Apache Software Foundation
                 (fielding at apache.org)  <http://www.apache.org/>