During the workshop in Lisbon, many people mentioned the need for HTTP
compliance tests. An analogy was made to the "connect-a-thon" that Sun
has organized for NFS implementations. One nice feature of the
connect-a-thon is that participating companies can not use the results
to claim compliance in their marketing literature. It seems to be an
engineering-only event to ensure that products interoperate with each
other.
My group would very much like to take on this role for HTTP
compliance/interoperation testing. We are interested in developing
software for vendors and others to use. We are willing to host
"HTTP-a-thon" events if vendors would find it useful.
Unfortunately, we probably don't have the resources at this time to
pull it off. We need money to hire a programmer/coordinator. What
follows is our plan for making it happen:
1) We create a "consortium" of sorts to fund the development.
The members are vendors and others interested in HTTP compliance
software and tests. Given that the discussion originated in
the context of caching, we expect many members to be companies
that have caching products.
2) Companies pay an annual membership fee of $20k (+/- $5k).
Our goal is to collect about $200/year for this project.
This money pays for salary, equipment, travel, etc.
3) Development is driven by the needs and desires of the members.
That is, members decide which features and tests are most
important. I envision something democratic -- one vote per
member.
4) My group implements the desired features, and provides support for
the software.
5) Members have immediate access to software releases. Software is
released to non-members after a period of six months (or so).
Members are bound to specific terms of use. Results may not be used
in marketing literature.
This is our proposal; nothing has been set in stone. I'm eager to find
out if vendors and others think its a workable model. Feel free to
follow up on this list, or reply to me personally.
Duane W.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Nov 18 2004 - 11:21:28 MST