Dropping the HTTP fallback for the context URL

[evanp]

In Section 2.1:

Implementations producing Activity Streams 2.0 documents SHOULD include a @context property with a value that includes a reference to the normative Activity Streams 2.0 JSON-LD @context definition using the URL " https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams". Implementations MAY use the alternative URL " http://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams" instead.

This HTTP fallback was added because it was originally an http: URL.

I'm not sure if it's directly harmful, but http: URLs are few and far between on the Web in 2026. Is there an opportunity to deprecate this fallback so it could be removed in a future version of the document?

[csarven]

No need for MAY at this point and even back then it did not impact interop. Decision on this sort of stuff can also make use of data from implementation reports.

[trwnh]

I would be +0.5 on deprecating this MAY, but it doesn't seem directly harmful. Perhaps indirectly harmful if it encourages people to publish AS2 documents using the http: URI and not the https: URI? (On the consuming side it's just an optional thing you can do.)

[evanp]

I think the only harm here is an additional burden of support on implementers, and added complexity. Either having to deal with two context URLs in their implementations, or fetching the http: version at runtime -- probably a bad idea!

I'd suggest that we deprecate this in the .1 version, and remove it from the next .0 version.

[trwnh]

Maybe add a non-normative callout note that our namespace uses https: and not http: (to not get confused by all other namespaces using http: and not https:)?