> [Original Message]
> From: Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@MIT.EDU>
>
> There is simply no sane way that you can have both
> servers _and_ clients interpreting these tags.

Actually there is a sane way.  If a UA receives an HTML document
that contains a <meta http-equiv=""> element via HTTP and the
corresponding header was sent with it, ignore the <meta> element
as the server has already taken care of it.  If the <meta> doesn't
match or contradicts an HTTP header then assume that the server
did not use the <meta> to set the headers.  (Assuming that the
document does not contain two <meta>'s with the same attribute
value for http-equiv of course, but it should be checking for that
as well.)  It is fairly easy for a client to detect if the server has
honored the <meta http-equiv="">'s.  Whether any actually do
detect that is another matter.