They're provided as guidance. They aren't some kind of internet law. Sometimes contravening standards is harmful; sometimes it's helpful. It's not productive to point at them as if they were dispositive in debates.
There is a bit more to it though: When a vendor declares compliance to a standard and fails to implement it correctly, then the vendor can be held accountable, and a customer is in a much better position to negotiate a correction. For this reason, standards are also important from a legal perspective.
Nope. If web standards worked, the benefits would be a stable platform where you can easily create new software that both produced or consumed content without breaking anything.
Of course that isn't what is happening at all. Instead we're having the usual heap of politics and ever-faster update cycles. So I'd agree to say that web standards failed - but not that they were meant as a guidiance in the first place.
Not really.
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc791
^ Was burned in hardware all over the planet.
People play games with IP all the time.
Re:HTTP headers we don't want
by scrollaway on Tuesday May 15, 2018 @08:01PM
(#17078923)
Sure, but there isn't a big company with clout saying "Hey, you should deviate from RFC791".
I agree that standards can and should be replaced/amended to over time, but I kinda see what GP's point is getting at.
Dropping Via from a response is roughly in the same category as ignoring the TCP Urgent flag. Most widely used standards have vestigial bits.
Re:HTTP headers we don't want
by AstralStorm on Wednesday May 16, 2018 @03:49AM
(#17080688)
A lot of hardware silently edits TOS flags, causing trouble with ECN and diff-serv...
Ignoring is usually fine. Dropping is not.
> Don't just nitpick the bits you want
<nitpick> Only people who like lice eggs nitpick the bits they want. Others pick-and-choose. </nitpick>
If there is a standard published for something, follow it or publish your own RFC. Don't just nitpick the bits you want and break clients in the process.