WWW Distributed Authoring and Versioning (webdav)

Last Modified: 2006-02-15

Additional information is available at tools.ietf.org/wg/webdav

Chair(s):

  • Cullen Jennings <fluffy@cisco.com>

    Applications Area Director(s):

  • Ted Hardie <hardie@qualcomm.com>
  • Lisa Dusseault <lisa@osafoundation.org>

    Applications Area Advisor:

  • Ted Hardie <hardie@qualcomm.com>

    Mailing Lists:

    General Discussion: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
    To Subscribe: w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org
    In Body: Subject of subscribe
    Archive: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/

    Description of 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]

    4. 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/).

    Goals and Milestones:

    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.
    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  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  Submit revised Ordered Collections protocol as Internet-Draft. Begin working group last call for comments.
    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. Submit to IESG for approval as a Proposed Standard.
    May 2004  Revise Binding draft, submit as internet-draft. Begin working group last call.
    Jul 2004  Revise Redirect references draft. Begin working group last call.
    Sep 2004  Revise Binding as necessary, submit to IESG for approval as Proposed 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.
    Dec 2004  Submit revised base protocol (RFC2518bis) to IESG for approval as Draft Standard.

    Internet-Drafts:

    Binding Extensions to Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning

    Request For Comments:

    Requirements for a Distributed Authoring and Versioning Protocol for the World Wide Web (RFC 2291) (44036 bytes)
    HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring -- WEBDAV (RFC 2518) (202829 bytes)
    WebDAV Ordered Collections Protocol (RFC 3648) (57147 bytes)
    WebDAV Access Control Protocol (RFC 3744) (146623 bytes)
    Quota and Size Properties for Distributed Authoring and Versioning (DAV) Collections (RFC 4331) (19706 bytes)
    Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Redirect Reference Resources (RFC 4437) (49932 bytes)
    HTTP Extensions for Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) (RFC 4918) (276352 bytes)
    IETF Secretariat - Please send questions, comments, and/or suggestions to ietf-web@ietf.org.

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