Re: Version issues

Jim Whitehead (ejw@ics.uci.edu)
Thu, 1 Apr 1999 17:02:42 -0800 

From: Jim Whitehead <ejw@ics.uci.edu>
To: Versioning <ietf-dav-versioning@w3.org>
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 17:02:42 -0800
Message-ID: <004501be7ca4$82eb6be0$d115c380@ics.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: Version issues



-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Kaler (Exchange) [mailto:ckaler@exchange.microsoft.com] 
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 1999 1:25 PM
To: 'Geoffrey M. Clemm'
Cc: jamsden@us.ibm.com; ejw@ics.uci.edu; dgd@cs.bu.edu;
bruce.Cragun@gw.novell.com; sridhar.iyengar@mv.unisys.com;
bradley_sergeant@intersolv.com; ABabich@filenet.com
Subject: RE: Version issues



I understand your point, please try to understand mine.

There are systems that exist today, they expose a specific model
to users that they have no desire to change (what would be the
value proposition).  This is not an argument, just a statement of fact.

I have raised the issue several times that some of
the level 2 concepts don't scale down well for level 1 clients.
The disagreement is that I believe there are a number of clients
that want something between level 1 and level 2.  Our current
discussions allow simple versioning clients to operate inside a
level 2 context which is driven from SCM experience.  There are
some, "not simple, but not too advanced" features that do not mesh 
well with level 2 because of the "purist" approach of level 2.

We can choose to discount this class of client -- that is what
developing a standard often requires.  However, we need to make this
an overt decision not an implicit one, because it will limit
adoption.

That is all I'm trying to say.  This is what I mean when I keep
saying that I think we are heavily SCM focused.  It is not so
much a criticism as an observation.  I live in both worlds, but 
mostly in the SCM world.  I just fear that we have discounted too 
much of the other world because of our SCM focus and upbringing.

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Geoffrey M. Clemm [mailto:gclemm@tantalum.atria.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 25, 1999 9:42 PM
To: Chris Kaler (Exchange)
Cc: jamsden@us.ibm.com; ejw@ics.uci.edu; dgd@cs.bu.edu;
bruce.Cragun@gw.novell.com; sridhar.iyengar@mv.unisys.com;
bradley_sergeant@intersolv.com; ABabich@filenet.com
Subject: Re: Version issues


   From: Chris Kaler <ckaler@microsoft.com>

   I think this is where Bruce and I disagree with you.  We have
   systems today that do this today and don't support the notion of
   per-user views.  Everyone shares the same view.  I understand your
   scalability concerns, but forcing clients to adopt a new paradigm, is
   an unpleasant thought.

In order to avoid producing a protocol that has so many different ways
of achieving the same goal that nobody will implement more than some
random subset, we will all have to make significant compromises in how
closely
it maps to exactly the system we have running today.

I think we can point to a several examples of compromise.
A couple that immediately come to mind are:
- both Brad and I represent companies that are essentially branch-based.
We both are working towards a protocol that supports change-based and
branch-based versioning equally, even at the cost of less direct
support for branching.
- None of the CM vendors support "mutable versioning", but we have
agreed to make this a required part of the protocol.

I hope we can keep pushing for compromises in this way, to
keep the protocol clean and simple enough to be a sound basis
for web-based versioning.  So like Jim, I'd prefer to see arguments
like "this won't solve the problem" or "this would be too expensive
to implement" than "that's not the way I do it today".

Cheers,
Geoff