mark nottingham

current projects

I’m working on a number of HTTP-related things:

• Chairing the IETF HTTP WG
• Helping with the HTTP APIs WG
• Helping to arrange the HTTP Workshop
• Testing HTTP resources at REDbot.org
• Finding out how caches work at cache-tests.fyi

Broader standards work includes:

• Serving on the W3C Board of Directors
• Curating rfc.fyi
• Writing about Centralization and Internet Standards

Finally, just for fun:

• Cocktail Standards

See also my specs in progress, projects at Github and random code snippets.

writing and presentations

• What to Expect from HTTP/2 2012; presented at Boeing, AirBnB, BBC, etc.
• What’s up with HTTP? 2008; presented at Bell Labs, Google, Yahoo!
• Caching Tutorial for Web authors and Webmasters
• RSS and Atom Feed Tutorial for content publishers and Webmasters
• An Opinionated Guide to Melbourne

See also other talks I’ve given and my academic papers.

snapshot

recent thoughts on my blog

• How we Build Platforms — I’m fascinated by the Metaverse. Not because I want to use that steaming pile of legless avatars, but because it’s the latest prominent attempt to establish a new platform. As Mark Zuckerberg said in internal emails about it:
• What I Learned in Law School — In the last decade or so, it’s become increasingly apparent that the Internet is going to be subject to more legal regulation. Because it’s a global network, this is tricky; fragmentation risk grows if regulation isn’t consistent between jurisdictions. And of course, there are all the other pitfalls of regulation — it’s difficult to agree on societal goals, much less change working systems to meet those goals without ill effect.
• A Safer, More Centralised Australian Internet — There are many potential criticisms of the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth)1. While my own concerns are mostly about whether there are appropriate checks and balances on the eSafety Commissioner’s powers, I will give credit where due; the current Commissioner’s implementation of it has – so far – demonstrated nuance and thoughtful balancing of the legislation’s goals with the preservation and enhancement of the unique properties that make the Internet so valuable to society. See, eg, ‘Explainer: The Online Safety Bill’, Digital Rights Watch. ↩
• What willwould a Chromium-only Web look like? — Most of the complexity and nuance of the Web is stuffed into browser engines. Even though they’re a huge burden to develop and maintain, the world is lucky enough to have three major ones, and they’re all Open Source.
• Yet More New HTTP Specs — The HTTP “core” documents were published on Monday, including a revision of HTTP semantics, caching, HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2, and the brand-new HTTP/3. However, that’s not all that the HTTP community has been up to.
• A New Definition of HTTP — Seven and a half years ago, I wrote that RFC2616 is dead, replaced by RFCs 7230-5.
• Server-Sent Events, WebSockets, and HTTP — The orange site is currently discussing an article about Server-Sent Events, especially as compared with WebSockets (and the emerging WebTransport). Both the article and discussion are well-informed, but I think they miss out on one aspect that has fairly deep implications.
• How the Next Layer of the Internet is Going to be Standardised — A big change in how the Internet is defined - and who defines it - is underway.