Re: Stable URLs

From: Geoffrey M. Clemm (geoffrey.clemm@rational.com)
Date: Mon, Apr 10 2000

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    Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 23:43:03 -0400 (EDT)
    Message-Id: <200004110343.XAA10282@tantalum.atria.com>
    From: "Geoffrey M. Clemm" <geoffrey.clemm@rational.com>
    To: ietf-dav-versioning@w3.org
    Subject: Re: Stable URLs
    
    
       From: jamsden@us.ibm.com
    
       1. As Tim pointed out yesterday, why are we even considering these
       stable URLs for down-level client support? Why isn't this just a
       client binding issue? If a down-level client wants a stable URL to
       access revisions of a versioned resource, some other versioning
       aware client could provide them through bindings. Some versioning
       clients may even do this automatically. I don't see why the server
       and protocol need to get involved in this kind of policy
       issue. Workspaces and revision selection, plus bindings provides
       everything needed.
    
    Many versioning implementations do not support a BIND operation.
    Those that do support it often only support a BIND to a versioned
    resource, not a BIND to a particular revision of a versioned resource.
    But they all give you some way of getting to a particular revision of
    a versioned resource.  JimW wants us to require that a core versioning
    server provide a URL that gets you to a particular revision, so
    that versioning unaware clients can get to a particular revision.
    
    I am still unconvinced that this must be a core feature, since if it
    is so important, the servers that provide it will rapidly dominate
    those that do not, but on the other hand, I haven't heard any good
    arguments for why it would be *hard* for a core versioning server to
    provide this functionality, so I'm inclined to vote to leave it in
    core versioning until I hear such an argument.
    
       2. Where does the protocol actually require these stable bindings
       for its own purposes?
    
    I'm note quite sure what you mean by "for its own purposes".
    The main argument for stable bindings is to ensure that versioning
    aware clients can expose multiple revisions of a single versioned
    resource to versioning unaware clients.
    
       3. If we have to have stable bindings (note I'm using that term now
       as I still think servers need to be free to impliment and
       reorganize their stores independently of the WebDAV protocol), then
       why not have the "human" URLs be live properties accessed through
       the stable bindings instead of using a report?
    
    Because each workspace potentially has a different "human" URL that
    identifies a given versioned resource, so the "human" URL is a function
    of both the stable URL and the workspace.
    
    Cheers,
    Geoff