Link: http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/96
Component: p2-semantics
Apparently people are confused by the fact that the definition of GET specifically mentions conditional headers:
The semantics of the GET method change to a "conditional GET" if the request message includes an If-Modified-Since, If-Unmodified-Since, If-Match, If-None-Match, or If-Range header field. A conditional GET method requests that the entity be transferred only under the circumstances described by the conditional header field(s). The conditional GET method is intended to reduce unnecessary network usage by allowing cached entities to be refreshed without requiring multiple requests or transferring data already held by the client. -- < http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2616#section-9.3 >
Do we need to clarify that conditionals apply to all requests? (do they?).
They do apply to all requests, though in different ways.
I think we should just refer to Part 4 (conditional requests) near the beginning of the section on Methods.