Re: Workspace header and optional labeling

   From: "Jim Amsden/Raleigh/IBM" <jamsden@us.ibm.com>

   Since -10 is the working group last call, we need to maintain "change bars"
   between now and proposed standard last call. Since text documents rule, we
   should keep a changes list at the end of the document to give a heads up to
   readers. Just high-level items, not minor changes would probably be
   sufficient. These will be removed in -11 and started again as we address
   proposed standard last call feedback leading to -12.

Sounds good ... will do.

   We should also have a list of unresolved issues to discuss at the Dec
   working group meeting.

I believe that these issues should be discussed on the mailing
list during the last call period, and not deferred to a discussion
at the Dec working group meeting.  Certainly, any issues that cannot
be resolved on the mailing list should be discussed at the Dec working
group meeting.

   I think making labels optional is a prime candidate.
   With all the discussions we've had on leveling in the last two years,
   no-one has ever requested that labels be optional.

We explicitly decided to not discuss leveling over a year ago,
since it didn't make sense to discuss what functionality belonged
in what level until we had actually settled on what functionality
we would supporting.  Over the last year, the design effort has been
primarily focused on firming up the details of advanced versioning
support, which are primarily of interest to configuration management
system providers.

Now that the dust has settled, and we have received a very thorough
review from a document management provider, I believe we need to
take that review very seriously.  The fact that configuration
management providers are happy to provide labeling support is
to be expected, and is therefore neither very surprising nor
especially interesting.  If we want document management system
providers to implement the versioning protocol (and I certainly do),
we need to set the "functionality bar" at a level appropriate for
document management.

   Lisa brought it up and
   provided some example repository vendors that don't support labels. You
   have expressed support for making it optional.   But the Jims' have been
   pretty vocal on the other side. And I did submit a rebuttal on the recent
   arguments.

I have not seen any rebuttal to the recent arguments (only your
initial messages in favor of requiring label support by all servers).
To summarize the recent arguments:

The combination of standard client defined properties like DAV:comment
and DAV:creator-displayname, custom client defined properties, and
standard server defined properties like DAV:version-name and
DAV:getmodificationdate, are sufficient to name and locate versions of
interest, and this is demonstrated by the document management systems
that do so (without the use of labels).

It is this point that I'd need to see rebutted.

   So I think this is a subject the working group should address.

I believe that the appropriate forum to discuss these final
last call issues is this mailing list, as this provides convenient
access to every member of the working group.

Cheers,
Geoff

Received on Wednesday, 11 October 2000 11:55:13 UTC