WWW Distributed Authoring and Versioning (webdav)

Last Modified: 2006-02-15

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

Chair(s):

Applications Area Director(s):

Applications Area Advisor:

Mailing Lists:

General Discussion: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
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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)