LYNX-DEV capability negotiation

[Al Gilman]

Klaus Weide muttered aside..  
  > [  And I hope it is not a way to drag us all into an Internet-wide
  >    "Share your preference folder with our sponsors!" initiative...  ]
  
To which Chris Maded replied..
  I'm not sure what that means.  The WAI is sponsored by the
  U.S. government, the EC, the Japanese government, and the Yuri
  Rubinsky Insight Foundation.  There are software vendors as major
  sponsors, but I think it will be the least specific-vendor-focused
  thing the W3C has ever done.
  
And Al confused things yet more by floodgating..

Klaus has a valid beef.  Any data you send can be used against
you. There are risks in sending forward too much information,
because you have too little control over how it is used to
generate junk mail, burglaries, etc. But that doesn't mean we
should treat the Initiative as an opportunity.

A problem we are seeing on the Web is that server sites try to
judge what form of media to send by inspecting the _name_ of the
user agent (e.g. Lynx).  There is a more robust way to handle
this via the accept headers the user agent sends.  

Chris has a good point, too.  The initiative is an opportunity to
get to rules that are enforced.  In particular, enforcing wider
implementation of capability negotiation done right.

You do have to worry about what information you provide being
abused.  But this project is a real opportunity to get the
vendors on our side as regards the current sad state of
capability negotiation practice in the field.

--
Al Gilman
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