Re: LYNX-DEV Fote's lynx2-6mods.zip is NOT the "development code" set!

[Foteos Macrides]

"Hiram Lester, Jr." <address@hidden> wrote:
>Do you forsee any chance of the string changing to something like Tom
>posted the other day "Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; X11; Lynx 2.6)" or
>something similar?  I didn't like the X11 part, but I guess that's the
>closest recognizable thing to unix.  MSIE up through 3.01 is identifying
>itself in this way, but I have had entries in my log of "Microsoft
>Internet Explorer/4.40.308 (Windows 95)". hmmm...

        Netscape has threatened to sue developers who follow MSIE's
example, and as you've noted, convinced MicroSoft to stop.

        The issue is whether the client can be "configured" to
present itself as Mozilla (even with the "compatible" caveat, the
http protocol, itself, specifies that the User-Agent identifies
itself via what precedes the slash, and what follows the slash is
just version and supplementary information about the UA).  Also,
that string, per se, would not help with servers which scan explicitly
for "Lynx" in the string and block access when present.

        It was not Netscape's overt intention to exclude Lynx from
any sites, and the ability to change the User-Agent string, temporarily
via the 'o'ptions menu, to get around the descrimination againt Lynx
at some site, coupled with an informational message about copyright
infringements when people make such a temporary change, is OK (we
are just trying to cope with bad practice at particualr sites, not
chronically misrepresenting Lynx as if it were Netscape).

                                Fote

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 Foteos Macrides            Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
 address@hidden         222 Maple Avenue, Shrewsbury, MA 01545
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