Concluded WG WWW Distributed Authoring and Versioning (webdav)

Note: The data for concluded WGs is occasionally incorrect.

WG Name WWW Distributed Authoring and Versioning
Acronym webdav
Area Applications Area (app)
State Concluded
Charter charter-ietf-webdav-01 Approved
Document dependencies
Personnel Chair Cullen Fluffy Jennings
Mailing list Address w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
To subscribe w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org
Archive http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/

Final Charter for Working Group

The goal of this working group is to define extensions to the Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that enable remote collaborative authoring of
Web resources. This is the third charter for
this Working Group, and does not include items
that have already been completed by this Working
Group (base WebDAV Proposed Standard, ordered
collections extension, and access control
extension).

When the WebDAV working group was initially formed, it was reacting to
experience from circa-1995/96 HTML authoring tools that showed they
were unable to meet their user's needs using the facilities of the HTTP
protocol. The observed consequences were either postponed introduction
of distributed authoring capability, or the addition of nonstandard
extensions to the HTTP protocol. These extensions, developed in
isolation, are not interoperable. The WebDAV Distributed Authoring
Protocol, RFC 2518, addressed these concerns by providing facilities
for
overwrite prevention (locking), metadata management (properties), and
namespace management (copy, move, collections).

Despite their utility, several important capabilities were not
supported
in the initial Distributed Authoring Protocol. It is a goal to create
protocols to support these capabilities:

  • Referential Containment (Bindings): The WebDAV Distributed Authoring
    Protocol has unusual containment semantics where multiple containment
    is allowed, but not supported by any protocol operations, yet
    container deletion assumes inclusion containment, deleting the
    container and its members. Most object management systems provide
    full support for referential containment, and have delete semantics
    that
    only remove the container without affecting contained objects.

  • Namespace Redirection (Redirect References): HTTP, via its 301 and
    302 responses, supports namespace redirection where a request on one
    URL is returned to the client with instructions to resubmit the same
    request to another URL.

As with most application layer protocols, implementation and field
experience on the WebDAV Distributed Authoring Protocol has highlighted
many issues that should be addressed as the protocol is advanced from
proposed to draft standard status. Some of these issues will require
additional deliberation within the WebDAV working group.

NOT IN SCOPE:

The following items were initially identified as being out of scope for
the WebDAV working group, and continue to be such:

  • Definition of core attribute sets, beyond those attributes necessary
    for the implementation of distributed authoring and versioning
    functionality

  • Creation of new authentication schemes

  • HTTP server to server communication protocols

  • Distributed authoring via protocols other than HTTP and SMTP

  • Implementation of functionality by non-origin proxies

Deliverables

The further output of this working group is expected to be these
documents:

  1. A Bindings Protocol, providing a specification of operations
    supporting referential containment for WebDAV collections. [Proposed
    Standard]

  2. A Redirect References Protocol, providing a specification of
    operations for remote maintenance of namespace redirections, and the
    interaction of these redirections with existing HTTP and WebDAV
    methods. [Proposed Standard]

  3. An updated version of WebDAV Distributed Authoring Protocol that
    resolves known issues with the protocol. [Draft Standard]

At present, the Binding Protocol and Redirect Reference protocols have
been through a WG last call but major changes were made and another
WG last call seems advised. The revision of the WebDAV Distributed
Authoring Protocol has been started.

In addition to the IETF Internet-Draft repository
(http://www.ietf.org/ID.html), the most recent versions of these
documents are accessible via links from the WebDAV Home Page,
(http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/webdav/), and on WebDAV Resources,
(http://www.webdav.org/).

Milestones

Date Milestone Associated documents
Dec 2004 Submit revised base protocol (RFC2518bis) to IESG for approval as Draft Standard.
Oct 2004 Close more open issues in new draft of revised base protocol (RFC2518bis). Consider WG last call.
Oct 2004 Revise Redirect references as necesssary, submit to IESG for approval as Proposed Standard.
Sep 2004 Revise Binding as necessary, submit to IESG for approval as Proposed Standard.
Jul 2004 Revise Redirect references draft. Begin working group last call.
May 2004 Revise Binding draft, submit as internet-draft. Begin working group last call.

Done milestones

Date Milestone Associated documents
Done Submit revised Ordered Collections protocol as Internet-Draft. Submit to IESG for approval as a Proposed Standard.
Done Meet at Minneapolis IETF. Discuss issues in WebDAV Distributed Authoring Protocol, and WebDAV property registry.
Done Submit revised Ordered Collections protocol as Internet-Draft. Begin working group last call for comments.
Done Meet at San Diego IETF. Hold a review of the Access Control Goals and Protocol documents. Discuss comments raised during working group last call for comments. Discuss issues in WebDAV Distributed Authoring Protocol.
Done Revise Access Control Protocol, and Access Control Goals documents. Submit as Internet Draft. Begin working group last call for comments.
Done Revise WebDAV Distributed Authoring Protocol. Submit as Internet-Draft
Done Revise Access Control Protocol document. Submit as Internet Draft.
Done Meet at Pittsburgh IETF. Discuss Access Control Goals and Protocol documents. Discuss issues in WebDAV Distributed Authoring Protocol
Done Revise Access Control Protocol document. Submit as Internet-Draft.
  NODES
HOME 1
Intern 10
Javascript 3
Note 2
os 17
server 2
text 1
web 27