Re: WeDAV Versioning Summary - Factoring!
Yaron Goland (yarong@microsoft.com)
Fri, 21 May 1999 15:55:33 -0700
Message-ID: <3FF8121C9B6DD111812100805F31FC0D0879322C@RED-MSG-59>
From: Yaron Goland <yarong@microsoft.com>
To: "'jamsden@us.ibm.com'" <jamsden@us.ibm.com>, ietf-dav-versioning@w3.org
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 15:55:33 -0700
Subject: RE: WeDAV Versioning Summary - Factoring!
In general the versioning specification has grown so feature laden that I
despair of very many groups ever being able to actually create a WebDAV
compliant versioning system. I think the problem is factoring. Here are some
heretical questions:
Question 1 - Would Delta-V be a failure if the base versioning case only
allowed HTTP/1.1 and WebDAV Level 1/2 clients to read but not change a
versioned store?
Question 2 - Would Delta-V be a failure if mutability was punted off to a
completely separate specification so that the majority of systems which only
have to deal with versioning can concentrate just on versioning?
Question 3 - Would Delta-V be a failure if the base versioning case didn't
support workspaces?
Question 4 - Would Delta-V be a failure if the base versioning case didn't
support configuration management (read: can't version collections)
Today Delta-V is turning into a monster with more features that anyone save
the very highest end vendors could ever hope to support. I know of at least
one million+ line operating system that is being developed using a
versioning system that can't version collections, doesn't allow down level
clients to make changes, doesn't support work spaces, has no clue what the
hell a "mutable" resource is, wouldn't know an activity if it hit it between
the eye balls and can't even generate explicit histories! Yet the system
works and unbelievably complex products manage to ship. Clearly there is a
strong and thriving market for low end versioning systems. My fear is that
even the "basic" Delta-V system will be too complex. Even the summary took 7
bloody pages! How can anyone ever hope to every perform a comprehensive
review of such a complex spec much less implement it? I am having ISO
flashbacks. Those guys produced the best specs nobody could implement.
In DAV we had a motto that really fits this situation well "The spec is done
when there is nothing left to cut." I would start by cutting mutability and
work from there.
Yaron