Mozilla

martin.thomson@gmail.com

ART Internet-Draft The teapot exists.

In an unpublished article in 1952 , Bertrand Russell postulated the existence of a teapot: To take another illustration: nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptical orbit, but nobody thinks this sufficiently likely to be taken into account in practice. Though mentioned originally in jest and without solid evidence of its existence, first by Russell and later by Masinter , sightings have increased in recent years. The teapot exists.

We cannot be certain whether the teapot is cognizant of its own existence. Though Decartes used thought as the basis of his theory of existence, it’s not established whether thought is a necessary precondition for existence.

Even jokes can have serious consequences. Arguably, the best jokes always have consequences.

IANA shall register the 418 (I’m a Teapot) status code in the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Status Code Registry, citing this document. As recommended by , this document refines the definition of the 418 status code. Being a teapot is irrevocable, therefore this status code is cacheable. The payload of a response with a 418 status code isn’t a representation of the effective request URI unless the Content-Location header field contains the effective request URI.

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a stateless \%application- level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypertext information systems. This document defines the semantics of HTTP/1.1 messages, as expressed by request methods, request header fields, response status codes, and response header fields, along with the payload of messages (metadata and body content) and mechanisms for content negotiation. This document describes HTCPCP, a protocol for controlling, monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots. This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.