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The concept for the CGI logo was taken from the original used
by the NCSA CGI project.
This is the repository for the effort (reactivated in November of 1997) to turn the de facto Common Gateway Interface "standard" into an actual Informational RFC. The current effort has been based upon a draft composed by David Robinson, and much of his work has survived. That draft expired in July of 1997, however.
If you are a CGI script writer, please consider rating the usefulness of the information on these pages at the CGI Resource Index. Thanks!
Even though the official format of RFCs and Internet Drafts is plain text formatted for A-size paper, the working documents here are primarily written in HTML for convenience and ease of markup. As a result, please include a document name, section number, and some context when remarking on the text - page numbers aren't useful.
Special note: The HTML documents in this repository are written compliant to the HTML 4.0 recommendation, and use CSS2 style sheets. If your browser cannot handle these features, please upgrade to one that can. If you can't, please let the working-group chair know. (You can tell if your browser can handle these features by whether the first line of each of the following bullet items is red; if they are, it does.)
Goal: Clearly and concisely codify "current practice" of CGI/1.1 usage on the Web as of 1999.
Goal: To address problems and deficiencies of CGI as it is currently deployed.
Please don't bookmark the individual documents, as the names are changed periodically and your links will go stale.
The original thrust of this latest effort was to formulate an enhanced CGI specification, called CGI/1.2, which was a proper superset of the CGI/1.1 functionality. This turned out to be the cause of some confusion, so the plan was changed.
To confuse matters further, the draft was mistakenly submitted to the RFC Editor rather than the Internet Drafts Editor. This has been corrected.
The new plan is as follows:
How far is up? Seriously, more issues are being identified all the time, so there's no clear indication when the CGI/1.2 work will be ready for RFC submission. The rework of the original RFCED Revision 00 document into an Internet Draft describing CGI/1.1 current practice is complete and the I-D revision 00 submission was made at the end of May, 1998. The 01 revision of the CGI/1.1 draft has also been completed and submitted for to the Internet Drafts editor for release. It was first submitted in late November, after the blackout period preceding the IETF meeting, so it was re-submitted on 8 December 1998 (including a couple of additional changes). It's even possible that the 01 draft can be submitted for acceptance as an Informational RFC.
That's the plan, anyway. :-)
The mailing list for discussing this draft can be found at [email protected], and it is open to all. Submissions can only be made by subscribed members (an anti-spam measure). In other words, don't send mail to that address unless you've joined the list! To subscribe to the list, which is managed by Majordomo, send a message to [email protected] with the word "subscribe" in the body (not the subject!) of the message.
Being on the list is the only way you can see the discussions and make your own comments. The list archives are now available for general consumption via the Web at <URL:http://Web.Golux.Com/coar/cgi/archives/> Once you're on the mailing list you can also access them through email.
If you have questions, please contact the chair of the "working group," Ken Coar.
