Message-Id: <199605141621.LAA08372@austin.bsdi.com>
To: new-httpd@hyperreal.com
Subject: Re: Apache problem (fwd) 
In-reply-to: Paul Richards's message of Tue, 14 May 1996 15:52:43 BST.
References: <199605141452.PAA15907@cadair.elsevier.co.uk> 
From: Tony Sanders <sanders@bsdi.com>
Organization: Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 11:21:56 -0500
Sender: owner-new-httpd@apache.org
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: new-httpd@hyperreal.com

Paul Richards writes:
> Any comments? 
> 
> > Netscape totally ignores the status line, and happily displays the document.
It really should be red-flaging the document (death to all popups)
so that it is clear to the user that there was an error; but it's
good that it displays the document.

[you could always put a nice red-flag in the document itself :-]

> > However, some older versions of Mosaic see that an error occurs, and decide
> > that it's better to display everything that follows. This includes header
> > information, so Mosaic users of the electronic journals get the header
> > information on their screen when they try to enter an access protected area.
> > Microsoft Internet Explorer sees the error status line, and generates an
> > alerting pop-up window, telling that you do not have access, without
> > displaying the document.

That is just totally bogus; the information returned by the server
is potentially *critical* to the user to figure out what they have
done wrong.

Quoting from the spec [draft-ietf-http-v10-spec-05; Feb 1996]:
	9.4 Client Error 4xx

	...
	Except when responding to a HEAD request, the server should
	include an entity containing an explanation of the error
	situation, and whether it is a temporary or permanent condition.

[Of course, when el-users are at the helm it's usually permanent :-]