- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 19:26:28 PST
- To: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
This relates to the discussion on locking but more generally on a suite of issues we're struggling with. I think I said this once but I don't think I typed it yet. Short terminology (not definitions, just 'please keep them separate') server: Where the docs are. client: The software that talks to the server. user: The person running the client. customer: Whoever bought the server & clients. policy: What the customer wants the server to enforce. The problem is that servers embody policies, e.g.: - Documents must be locked before they can be edited. - An update of a document must include certain meta-data that says why the document was edited. The _customer_ wants the _server_ to enforce the _policy_ on the _user_, but we would like this to be possible without the _client_ having to know about all possible policies. Whether locking is required is a policy. Should a careful client have to know about all possible locking policies? The policy might be enforced per-document or per-server area, so policy is not easily determinable in advance, anyway. If we identify the edit life-cycle of documents, we should allow the server to ask the client to ask the user for information that the server's policy might require at each point in the life cycle. Since this is WEBDAV and not just DAV, we could define that interaction as "the server gives the client a form that the user is expected to fill in", since the web includes forms. Larry
Received on Wednesday, 12 February 1997 10:14:16 UTC