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There is some pretty dubious and I think wishful stuff in here, like "applications should align their usage closely as possible with web browsers", or the idea that ad-hoc protocols specified over HTTP should use links rather than fixed URLs. Does anyone have the backstory on this I-D? Anybody can write one, right?

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He's not quite anyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Nottingham

Perhaps this is meant as a public service, just to gather best practices. If you want to build your own thing, please go ahead, but don't call it HTTP.

Fair enough, re Nottingham. Thanks for the link, that neatly answers my question.

I strongly disagree that ignoring these suggested BCPs disqualifies an application as "HTTP". As far as I'm concerned, if a typical middlebox will reliably pass messages in it, it's HTTP.

HTTP was intended to support web browsers, so there may be value in keeping compatibility. Application development, debugging, and scripting can all potentially be well served by having standard HTTP interfaces for interactions because this enables application operations to be performed or spoofed using web browsers.

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