- From: Judith Slein <slein@wrc.xerox.com>
- Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 12:41:57 PST
- To: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
To meet our schedule of submitting our requirements as an Internet Draft by
February 28, I'd like to get one last round of comments by close of business
Tuesday (EST, if possible), February 25. I'll make last-minute changes
Tuesday night and ship the requirements to the Internet Draft administrator
Wednesday morning.
Look especially at the namespace manipulation section (5.7), where I have
tried to add detail based partly on the spec and Jim's note on Copy/Move,
and also the versioning general principles section (5.9.1).
Thanks, everyone, for your help.
--Judy
---------------------------------
WEBDAV Working Group J.A. Slein
INTERNET-DRAFT Xerox Corporation
<draft-slein-www-dist-author-00.txt> F. Vitali
University of Bologna
E.J. Whitehead, Jr.
U.C. Irvine
D.G. Durand
Boston University
February 28, 1997
Expires August 28, 1997
Requirements for Distributed Authoring and Versioning
on the World Wide Web
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet draft. Internet drafts are working
documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas and
its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working
information as Internet drafts.
Internet Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and can be updated, replaced or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet drafts as reference material
or to cite them as other than as "work in progress".
To learn the current status of any Internet draft please check the
"lid-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet drafts shadow
directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe),
munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East coast) or
ftp.isi.edu (US West coast). Further information about the IETF can be
found at URL: http://www.ietf.org/
Distribution of this document is unlimited. Please send comments to the
WWW Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) mailing list,
<w3c-dist-auth@w3.org>, which may be joined by sending a message with
subject "subscribe" to <w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org>. Discussions are
archived at URL:
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/.
Abstract
Current World Wide Web (WWW or Web) standards provide simple support
for applications which allow remote editing of typed data. In practice,
the existing capabilities of the WWW have proven inadequate to support
efficient, scalable remote editing free of overwriting conflicts.
This document presents a list of features in the form of requirements
which, if implemented, would improve the efficiency of common remote
editing operations, provide a locking mechanism to prevent overwrite
conflicts, improve relationship management support between non-HTML
data types, provide a simple attribute-value metadata facility, provide
for the creation and reading of container data types, and integrate
versioning into the WWW.
1. Introduction
This document describes functionality which, if standardized in the
context of the WWW, would allow tools for remote loading, editing and
saving (publishing) of various media types on the WWW to interoperate
with any compliant Web server. As much as possible, this functionality
is described without suggesting a proposed implementation, since there
are many ways to perform the functionality within the WWW framework. It
could be implemented in extensions to HTTP, in a new protocol to be
layered on top of HTTP, in additional MIME types, or some combination
of these and other approaches. It is also possible that a single
mechanism could simultaneously satisfy several requirements.
This document reflects the consensus of the WWW Distributed Authoring
and Versioning working group (WebDAV) as to the functionality that needs
to be standardized to support authoring on the Web.
2. Rationale
Current Web standards contain functionality which enables the editing of
Web content at a remote location, without direct access to the storage
media via an operating system. This capability is exploited by several
existing HTML distributed authoring tools, and by a growing number of
mainstream applications (e.g., word processors) which allow users to
write (publish) their work to an HTTP server. To date, experience from
the HTML authoring tools has shown they are unable to meet their users'
needs using the facilities of Web standards. The consequence of
this is either postponed introduction of distributed authoring
capability, or the addition of nonstandard extensions to the HTTP
protocol [3] or other Web standards. These extensions, developed in
isolation, are not interoperable.
Other authoring applications have wanted to access document repositories
or version control systems through Web gateways, and have been similarly
frustrated. Where this access is available at all, it is through
nonstandard extensions to HTTP or other standards that force clients to
use a different interface for each vendor's service.
This document describes requirements for a set of standard extensions
to the Web that would allow distributed Web authoring tools to provide
the functionality their users need by means of the same standard
syntax across all compliant servers. The broad categories of
functionality that need to be standardized are:
Attributes
Relationships
Locking
Reservations
Retrieval of Unprocessed Source
Partial Write
Name Space Manipulation
Collections
Versioning
3. General Principles
This section describes a set of general principles that the WebDAV
extensions should follow. These principles cut across categories of
functionality.
3.1. User Agent Interoperability
All WebDAV clients should be able to work with any WebDAV-compliant HTTP
server. It is acceptable for some client/server combinations to provide
special features that are not universally available, but the protocol
should be sufficient that a basic level of functionality will be
universal.
3.2. Client Simplicity
Simplicity of client interfaces should be a design principle for the
WebDAV extensions.
3.3. Legacy Client Support
It should be possible to implement a WebDAV-compliant server in such a
way that it can interoperate with non-WebDAV clients. Such a server
would be able to understand any valid request from an ordinary Web
client without WebDAV extensions, and to provide a response that does
not require the client to understand the extensions.
3.4. Data Format Compatibility.
WebDAV-compliant servers should be able to work with existing resources
and URIs [2]. Special additional information should not become a
mandatory part of document formats.
3.5. Replicated, Distributed Systems
Distribution and replication are at the heart of the Internet. All
WebDAV extensions should be designed to allow for distribution and
replication. Version trees should be able to be split across multiple
servers. Collections may have members on different servers. Resources
may have attributes on different servers. Any resources may be cached
or replicated for mobile computing or other reasons. Consequently, the
WebDAV extensions must be able to operate in a distributed, replicated
environment.
3.6 Parsimony in Client-Server Interactions
The WebDAV extensions should keep to a minimum The number of interactions
between the client and the server needed to perform common functions.
For example, publishing a document to the Web will often mean publishing
content together with related metadata. A client may often need to find
out what version graph a particular resource belongs to, or to find out
which resource in a version graph is the published one. The extensions
should make it possible to do these things efficiently.
4. Terminology
Where there is overlap, usage is intended to be consistent with that in
the HTTP 1.1 specification [3].
Attribute
Named descriptive information about a resource.
Client
A program which issues HTTP requests and accepts responses.
Collection
A hierarchical organization of resources. A collection is a
resource that contains other resources, including collections,
either directly or by reference.
Distributed Authoring Tool
A program which can retrieve a source entity via HTTP, allow
editing of this entity, and then save/publish this entity
to a server using HTTP.
Entity
The information transferred in a request or response.
Lock
A mechanism for preventing anyone other than the owner of the
lock from accessing a resource.
Member of Version Graph
A version. A resource that is a node in a version graph, and
so is derived from the resources that precede it in the graph,
and is the basis of those that succeed it.
Relationship
A typed connection between two or more resources.
Reservation
A declaration to the server that one intends to edit a resource.
Resource
A network data object or service that can be identified by
a URI.
Server
A program which receives and responds to HTTP requests.
Server Attribute
An attribute whose value is generated by the server.
User Agent
The client that initiates a request.
User Attribute
An attribute whose value is provided by a user or a user agent.
Version Graph
A directed acyclic graph with resources as its nodes, where
each node is derived from its predecessor(s).
Write Lock
A lock that prevents anyone except its owner from modifying
the resource it applies to.
5. Requirements
In the requirement descriptions below, the requirement will be stated,
followed by its rationale.
5.1. Attributes
5.1.1. Functional Requirements
It must be possible on the Web in a standard way to create, modify,
query, read and delete arbitrary attributes on resources of any media
type.
Attributes are resources that may have attributes of their own, may be
subject to content negotiation, etc.
Attributes have implications for the semantics of move, copy, and
delete operations. See "5.7. Name Space Manipulation" below.
5.1.2. Rationale
Attributes describe resources of any media type. They may
include bibliographic information such as author, title, publisher,
and subject, constraints on usage, PICS ratings, etc. These
attributes have many uses, such as supporting searches on attribute
values, enforcing copyrights, and the creation of catalog entries as
placeholders for objects which are not available in electronic form, or
which will be available later.
5.2. Relationships
5.2.1. Functional Requirements
It must be possible on the Web in a standard way to create, modify,
query, read and delete typed relationships between resources of any
media type.
Relationships have implications for the semantics of move, copy, and
delete operations. See "5.7. Name Space Manipulation" below.
5.2.2. Rationale
One type of relationship between resources is the hypertext
link, which is browsable using a hypertext style point-and-click user
interface. Relationships, whether they are browsable hypertext links,
or simply a means of capturing a connection between resources, have
many purposes. Relationships can support pushbutton printing of a
multi-resource document in a prescribed order, jumping to the access
control page for a resource, and quick browsing of related information,
such as a table of contents, an index, a glossary, help pages, etc.
While relationship support is provided by the HTML "LINK" element, this
is limited only to HTML resources [1]. Similar support is needed for
bitmap image types, and other non-HTML media types.
5.3. Locking
5.3.1. General Principles
5.3.1.1. Independence of locks. It must be possible to lock a resource
without re-reading the resource, and without committing to editing the
resource.
5.3.1.2. Multi-Resource Locking. It must be possible to take out a
lock on multiple resources in the same action, and this locking
operation must be atomic across these resources.
5.3.1.3. Partial-Resource Locking. It must be possible to take out a
lock on a subsection of a resource.
5.3.1.4. Server Support for Locking Is Optional. Some systems use other
mechanisms besides locking to ensure consistency in environments where
several users may wish to edit a resource at once. These other
strategies must be permitted.
5.3.2. Functional Requirements
5.3.2.1. Write Locks. It must be possible to restrict modification of
a resource to a specific person.
5.3.2.2. Lock Query. It must be possible to find out whether a given
resource has any active modification restrictions, and if so, who
currently has modification permission.
5.3.2.3. Unlock. It must be possible to remove a lock. Only the owner
of a lock or a principal with appropriate access rights may remove the
lock.
5.3.3. Rationale
At present, the Web provides limited support for preventing two or more
people from overwriting each other's modifications when they save to a
given URI. Furthermore, there is no way to discover whether someone else
is currently making modifications to a resource. This is known as the
"lost update problem," or the "overwrite problem." Since there can be
significant cost associated with discovering and repairing lost
modifications, preventing this problem is crucial for supporting
distributed authoring. A write lock ensures that only one person may
modify a resource, preventing overwrites. Furthermore, locking support
is a key component of many versioning schemes, a desirable capability
for distributed authoring.
An author may wish to lock an entire web of resources even though he
is editing just a single resource, to keep the other resources from
changing. In this way, an author can ensure that if a local hypertext
web is consistent in his distributed authoring tool, it will then be
consistent when he writes it to the server. Because of this, it should
be possible to take out a lock without also causing transmission of the
contents of a resource.
It is often necessary to guarantee that a lock or unlock operation
occurs at the same time across multiple resources, a feature which is
supported by the multiple-resource locking requirement. This is useful
for preventing a collision between two people trying to establish locks
on the same set of resources, since with multi-resource locking, one of
the two people will get a lock. If this same multiple-resource locking
scenario was repeated by using atomic lock operations iterated across
the resources, the result would be a splitting of the locks between the
two people, based on resource ordering and race conditions.
Partial resource locking provides support for collaborative editing
applications, where multiple users may be editing the same resource
simultaneously. Partial resource locking also allows multiple people to
simultaneously work on a database type resource.
5.4. Reservations
5.4.1. Functional Requirements
5.4.1.1. Reserve. It must be possible to notify the server that
a resource is about to be edited by a given person.
5.4.1.2. Reservation Query. It must be possible to find out whether
a given resource has any active reservations, and if so, who currently
holds reservations.
5.4.1.3. Release Reservation. It must be possible to release the
reservation. Only the owner of a reservation or a principal with
appropriate access rights may release the reservation.
5.4.2. Rationale
Experience from configuration management systems has shown that people
need to know when they are about to enter a parallel editing situation.
Once notified, they either decide not to edit in parallel with the
other authors, or they use out-of-band communication (face-to-face,
telephone, etc.) to coordinate their editing to minimize the difficulty
of merging their results. Reservations are separate from locking, since
a write lock does not necessarily imply a resource will be edited, and
a reservation does not carry with it any access restrictions. This
capability supports versioning, since a check-out typically involves
taking out a write lock, making a reservation, and getting the resource
to be edited.
5.5. Retrieval of Unprocessed Source for Editing
5.5.1. Functional Requirement
The source of any given entity must be retrievable by a standard Web
mechanism.
5.5.2. Rationale
There are many cases where the source stored on a server does
not correspond to the actual entity transmitted in response to an HTTP
GET. Current known cases are server side include directives, and
Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) source which is
converted on the fly to HyperText Markup Language (HTML) [1] output
entities. There are many possible cases, such as automatic conversion
of bitmap images into several variant bitmap media types (e.g. GIF,
JPEG), and automatic conversion of an application's native media type
into HTML. As an example of this last case, a word processor could
store its native media type on a server which automatically converts
it to HTML. A GET of this resource would retrieve the HTML. Retrieving
the source would retrieve the word processor native format.
This requirement should be met by a general mechanism which can handle
both the "single-step" source processing described above, where the
source is converted into the transmission entity via a single
conversion step, as well as "multi-step" source processing, where there
are one or more intermediate processing steps and outputs. An example
of multi-step source processing is the relationship between an
executable binary image, its object files, and its source language
files. It should be noted that the relationship between source and
transmission entity could be expressed using the relationship
functionality described above in "5.2. Relationships."
5.6. Partial Write.
5.6.1. Functional Requirement
After editing a resource, it must be possible, by a standard Web
mechanism, to write only the changes to the resource, rather than
retransmitting the entire resource.
5.6.2. Rationale
During distributed editing which occurs over wide geographic separations
and/or over low bandwidth connections, it is extremely inefficient
and frustrating to rewrite a large resource after minor changes, such
as a one-character spelling correction. Support is needed for
transmitting "insert" (e.g., add this sentence in the middle of a
document) and "delete" (e.g. remove this paragraph from the middle of
a document) style updates. Support for partial resource updates will
make small edits more efficient, and allow distributed authoring tools
to scale up for editing large documents.
5.7. Name Space Manipulation
5.7.1. Copy
5.7.1.1. Functional Requirements
It must be possible via the Web to duplicate a resource without
a client loading, then resaving the resource. After the copy operation,
the content of the destination resource must be octet for octet
identical to the content of the source resource. A modification to
either resource must not cause a modification to the other. The copy
operation should leave an audit trail.
It must be possible for a client to specify whether a resource's
attributes are to be copied with it. If so, the user attribute values
of the destination resource must be octet for octet identical to the
attribute values of the source resource. A modification to the
attribute values of either resource must not cause a modification to the
attribute values of the other. If not, the user attributes either will
not exist or will have null values for the destination resource. In
an environment where resources may share the same attributes, the server
may decline to copy the user attributes, instead referencing the
existing user attributes. It may also decline to copy user attributes
if the destination namespace supports different attributes from the
source namespace. The server may follow whatever policy it likes for
server attributes.
It must be possible for a client to specify whether a resource's
relationships are to be copied with it. If so, any reference to the
source resource must be changed to reference the destination resource
in the relationship on the destination resource. A modification to the
relationships of either resource must not cause a modification to the
relationships of the other. If not, the relationships will not exist on
the destination resource. The server may decline to copy relationships
if the destination namespace supports different relationship types from
the source namespace.
Copying a collection causes all of the resources that belong to it
directly to be copied as well. For resources that belong to it by
reference, the reference is copied. It must be possible for a client
to specify whether subcollections should be copied with the collection.
If a version graph is copied, all relationships between nodes in the
graph must be changed in the new copy to reflect its new location.
5.7.1.2. Rationale
There are many reasons why a resource might need to be duplicated, such
as changing ownership, preparing for major modifications, or making
a backup. In combination with delete functionality, copy can be used to
implement rename and move capabilities, by performing a copy to a new
name, and a delete of the old name. Due to network costs associated
with loading and saving a resource, it is far preferable to have a
server perform a resource copy than a client. If a copied resource
records which resource it is a copy of, then it would be possible for
a cache to avoid loading the copied resource if it already locally
stores the original.
5.7.2. Move/Rename
5.7.2.1. Functional Requirements
It must be possible in a standard way to change the location of a
resource without a client loading, then resaving the resource under
a different name. After the move operation, the content of the resource
at its new location must be octet for octet identical to the content of
the prior resource. It must no longer be possible to access the resource
at its original location. The move operation should leave an audit
trail.
It must be possible for a client to specify whether a resource's
attributes are to be moved with it. If so, the user attribute values
of the resource at its new location must be octet for octet identical
to the attribute values the resource had at its original location. If
not, the user attributes either will not exist or will have null values
at the new location. In an environment where resources may share the
same attributes, the server may decline to move the user attributes,
instead referencing the existing user attributes. It may also decline
to move user attributes if the destination namespace supports different
attributes from the source namespace. The server may follow whatever
policy it likes for server attributes.
It must be possible for a client to specify whether a resource's
relationships are to be moved with it. If so, any reference to the
source resource must be changed to reference the destination resource
in the relationship on the destination resource. If not, the
relationships will not exist on the destination resource. The server
may decline to move relationships if the destination namespace supports
different relationship types from the source namespace.
Moving a collection causes all of the resources that belong to it
directly to be moved as well. For resources that belong to it by
reference, the reference is moved. It must be possible for a client
to specify whether subcollections should be moved with the collection.
If not, subcollections that belong to the collection directly should be
deleted from the source location.
If a version graph is moved, all relationships between nodes in the
graph must be changed in the destination resource to reflect its new
location.
5.7.2.2. Rationale
It is often necessary to change the name of a resource, for example due
to adoption of a new naming convention, or if a typing error was made
entering the name originally. Due to network costs, it is undesirable
to perform this operation by loading, then resaving the resource,
followed by a delete of the old resource. Similarly, a single rename
operation is more efficient than a copy followed by a delete operation.
Ideally an HTTP server should record the move operation, and issue a
"301 Moved Permanently" status code for requests on the old URL. A move
operation, if implemented with attribute support, should also preserve
most attributes across a move. Note that moving a resource is considered
the same function as renaming a resource.
5.7.3. Delete
HTTP already provides a DELETE method, but the semantics of DELETE must
be reconsidered once attributes, relations, collections, and versions
are introduced.
When a resource is deleted, it must be possible for a client to specify
whether a its attributes are to be deleted with it. In an environment
where resources may share the same attributes, the server may decline
to delete the attributes.
When a resource is deleted, the relationships in which it participates
should also be deleted.
If the resource being deleted is a collection, all resources that belong
to it directly will be deleted as well. Resources that belong to it by
reference are unaffected.
If the resource being deleted is a member of a version graph, the
predecessor and successor relationships in the graph must be updated,
and any metadata required by the versioning server must be supplied.
5.8. Collections
A collection is a resource that is a container for other resources,
including other collections. A resource may belong to a collection
either directly or by reference. If a resource belongs to a
collection directly, namespace operations like copy, move, and
delete applied to the collection also apply to the resource. If a
resource belongs to a collection by reference, namespace operations
applied to the collection affect only the reference, not the resource
itself.
5.8.1. Functional Requirements
5.8.1.1. List Collection. A listing of all resources located in a
specific collection must be accessible via the Web. It should be
possible to specify which of the resources' attributes should be
displayed in the listing. Default attributes might be location, media
type, and last modified date.
5.8.1.2. Make Collection. It must be possible via the Web to create a
new collection.
5.8.1.3. Add to Collection. It must be possible to add a resource to a
collection directly or by reference.
5.8.1.4. Remove from Collection. It must be possible to remove a
resource from a collection. In the case of a resource that belongs to
the collection directly, this results in the resource being deleted. In
the case of a resource that is merely referenced by the collection, only
the reference is removed.
5.8.1.5. Collections have implications for the semantics of move, copy,
and delete operations. See "5.7. Name Space Manipulation" above.
5.8.2. Rationale
In [2] it states that, "some URL schemes (such as the ftp, http, and
file schemes) contain names that can be considered hierarchical."
Especially for HTTP servers which directly map all or part of their URL
name space into a filesystem, it is very useful to get a listing of all
resources located at a particular hierarchy level. This functionality
supports "Save As..." dialog boxes, which provide a listing of the
entities at a current hierarchy level, and allow navigation through
the hierarchy. It also supports the creation of graphical visualizations
(typically as a network) of the hypertext structure among the entities
at a hierarchy level, or set of levels. It also supports a tree
visualization of the entities and their hierarchy levels.
In addition, document management systems may want to make their
documents accessible through the Web. They typically allow the
organization of documents into collections, and so also want their users
to be able to view the collection hierarchy through the Web.
There are many instances where there is not a strong correlation between
a URL hierarchy level and the notion of a collection. One example is a
server in which the URL hierarchy level maps to a computational process
which performs some resolution on the name. In this case, the contents
of the URL hierarchy level can vary depending on the input to the
computation, and the number of resources accessible via the computation
can be very large. It does not make sense to implement a directory
feature for such a namespace. However, the utility of listing the
contents of those URL hierarchy levels which do correspond to
collections, such as the large number of HTTP servers which map their
namespace to a filesystem, argue for the inclusion of this capability,
despite not being meaningful in all cases. If listing the contents of
a URL hierarchy level does not makes sense for a particular URL, then
a "405 Method Not Allowed" status code could be issued.
The ability to create collections to hold related resources supports
management of a name space by packaging its members into small, related
clusters. The utility of this capability is demonstrated by the broad
implementation of directories in recent operating systems. The ability
to create a collection also supports the creation of "Save As..."
dialog boxes with "New Level/Folder/Directory" capability, common in
many applications.
5.9. Versioning
5.9.1. Background and General Principles
5.9.1.1. Stableness of versions. Most versioning systems are intended to
provide an accurate record of the history of evolution of a document.
This accuracy is ensured by the fact that a version eventually becomes
"frozen" and immutable. Once a version is frozen, further changes will
create new versions rather than modifying the original. In order for
caching and persistent references to be properly maintained, a client
must be able to determine that a version has been frozen. Any successful
attempt to retrieve a frozen version of a resource will always retrieve
exactly the same content, or return an error if that version (or the
resource itself) is no longer available.
5.9.1.2. Operations for Creating New Versions
Version management systems vary greatly in the operations they require,
the order of the operations, and how they are combined into atomic
functions. In the most complete cases, the logical operations involved
are:
o Reserve existing version
o Lock existing version
o Retrieve existing version
o Request or suggest identifier for new version
o Write new version
o Release lock
o Release reservation
With the exception of requesting a new version identifier, all of these
operations have applications outside of versioning and are either
already part of HTTP or are discussed in earlier sections of these
requirements. Typically, versioning systems combine reservation,
locking, and retrieval -- or some subset of these -- into an atomic
checkout function. They combine writing, releasing the lock, and
releasing the reservation -- or some subset of these -- into an atomic
checkin function. The new version identifier may be assigned either at
checkout or at checkin.
The WebDAV extensions must find some balance between allowing versioning
servers to adopt whatever policies they wish with regard to these
operations and enforcing enough uniformity to keep client
implementations simple.
5.9.1.3. The Versioning Model
Each version typically stands in a "derived from" relationship to its
predecessor(s). It is possible to derive several different versions
from a single version (branching), and to derive a single version from
several versions (merging). Consequently, the collection of related
versions forms a directed acyclic graph. In the following discussion,
this graph will be called a "version graph". Each node of this graph
is a "version" or "member of the version graph". The arcs of the graph
capture the "derived from" relationships.
It is also possible for a single resource to participate in multiple
version graphs.
The WebDAV extensions must support this versioning model, though
particular servers may restrict it in various ways.
5.9.1.4. Versioning Policies. Haake and Hicks [4] have identified
the notion of versioning styles (referred to here as versioning
policies, to reflect the nature of client/server interaction) as one
way to think about the different policies that versioning systems
implement. Versioning policies include decisions on the shape of
version histories (linear or branched), the granularity of change
tracking, locking requirements made by a server, etc. The protocol
should clearly identify the policies that it dictates and the
policies that are left variable for the implementations.
5.9.2. Functional Requirements
5.9.2.1. Referring to a version graph. There must be a way to refer to
a version graph as a whole.
Some queries and operations apply, not to any one member of a
version graph, but to the version graph as a whole. For example, a
client may request that an entire graph be moved, or may ask for a
version history. In these cases, a way to refer to the whole version
graph is required.
5.9.2.2. Referring to a specific member of a version graph. There must
be a way to refer to each member of a version graph. This means that
each member of the graph is itself a resource.
Each member of a version graph must be a resource if it is to be
possible for a hypertext link to refer to specific version of a page,
or for a client to request a specific version of a document for editing.
5.9.2.3. A client must be able to determine whether a resource is a
version graph, or whether a resource is itself a member of a version
graph.
A resource may be a simple, non-versioned resource, or it may be a
version graph, or it may be a member of a version graph. A client needs
to be able to tell which sort of resource it is accessing.
5.9.2.4. There must be a way to refer to a server-defined "default",
"current" or "tip" version of a resource.
The server should return a default version of a resource for requests
that ask for the default version, as well as for requests where no
specific version information is provided. This is one of the simplest
ways to guarantee non-versioning client compatibility. This does not
rule out the possibility of a server returning an error when no sensible
default exists.
5.9.2.5. It must be possible, given a reference to a member of a version
graph, to find out which version graph(s) that resource belongs to.
This makes it possible to understand the versioning context of the
resource. It makes it possible to retrieve a version history for the
graphs to which it belongs, and to browse the version graph. It also
supports some comparison operations: It makes it possible to determine
whether two references designate members of the same version graph.
5.9.2.6. Navigation of a version graph. Given a reference to a member
of a version graph, it must be possible to discover and access the
following related members of the version graph.
o root member of the graph
o predecessor member(s)
o successor member(s)
o default member of the graph
It must be possible in some way for a versioning client to access
versions related to a resource currently being exhamined.
5.9.2.7. Version Topology. There must be a way to retrieve the complete
version topology for a version graph, including information about all
members of the version graph. The format for this information must be
standardized so that the basic information can be used by all clients.
Other specialized formats should be accomodated, for servers and
clients that require information that cannot be included in the
standard topology.
5.9.2.8. A client must be able to request that the server generate a
version identifier for a new member of a version graph. Such an
identifier will not be used by any other client in the meantime. The
server may refuse the request.
5.9.2.9. A client must be able to propose a version identifier to be
used for a new member of a version graph. The server may refuse to use
the client's suggested version identifier.
5.9.2.10. A client must be able to supply version-specific metadata to
be associated with a new member of a version graph. (See Section 5.1
"Attributes" above.) At a minimum, it must be possible to associate
comments with the new member, explaining what changes were made.
5.9.2.11. A client must be able to query the server for information
about a version tree, including which versions are locked, which are
reserved for editing, and by whom (Session Tracking).
5.9.2.12. It must be possible for a client to get from the server a list
of the differences between two or more resources.
5.9.2.13. A client must be able to request that the server merge two or
more resources, and return the result of the merge to the client or
store the result as a resource. Server support for this functionality
is optional.
5.9.2.14. Versioning has implications for the semantics of move, copy,
and delete operations. See "5.7. Name Space Manipulation" above. In
addition, if the WebDAV extensions allow versioning servers to PUT or
POST new members into a version graph, the semantics of those methods
must be extended to encompass the new functionality.
5.9.3. Rationale
Versioning in the context of the world-wide web offers a variety of
benefits:
It provides infrastructure for efficient and controlled management of
large evolving web sites. Modern configuration management systems are
built on some form of repository that can track the revision history of
individual resources, and provide the higher-level tools to manage
those saved versions. Basic versioning capabilities are required to
support such systems.
It allows parallel development and update of single resources. Since
versioning systems register change by creating new objects, they
enable simultaneous write access by allowing the creation of variant
versions. Many also provide merge support to ease the reverse operation.
It provides a framework for access control over resources. While
specifics vary, most systems provide some method of controlling or
tracking access to enable collaborative resource development.
It allows browsing through past and alternative versions of a resource.
Frequently the modification and authorship history of a resource is
critical information in itself.
It provides stable names that can support externally stored links for
annotation and link-server support. Both annotation and link servers
frequently need to store stable references to portions of resources
that are not under their direct control. By providing stable states of
resources, version control systems allow not only stable pointers into
those resources, but also well-defined methods to determine the
relationships of those states of a resource.
It allows explicit semantic representation of single resources with
multiple states. A versioning system directly represents the fact that
a resource has an explicit history, and a persistent identity across
the various states it has had during the course of that history.
5.10 Security
The WebDAV extensions should make use of existing authentication and
security protocols.
6. Acknowledgements
Our understanding of these issues has emerged as the result of much
thoughtful discussion, email, and assistance by many people, who
deserve recognition for their effort.
Martin Cagan, Continuus Software, Marty_Cagan@continuus.com
Steve Carter, Novell, srcarter@novell.com
Dan Connolly, World Wide Web Consortium, connolly@w3.org
Mark Day, Lotus, Mark_Day@lotus.com
Ron Fein, Microsoft, ronfe@microsoft.com
David Fiander, Mortice Kern Systems, davidf@mks.com
Roy Fielding, U.C. Irvine, fielding@ics.uci.edu
Yaron Goland, Microsoft, yarong@microsoft.com
Phill Hallam-Baker, MIT, hallam@ai.mit.edu
Dennis Hamilton, Xerox PARC, hamilton@parc.xerox.com
Andre van der Hoek, University of Colorado, Boulder,
andre@bigtime.cs.colorado.edu
Gail Kaiser, Columbia University, kaiser@cs.columbia.edu
Rohit Khare, World Wide Web Consortium, khare@w3.org
Dave Long, America Online, dave@sb.aol.com
Henrik Frystyk Nielsen, World Wide Web Consortium, frystyk@w3.org
Ora Lassila, Nokia Research Center, ora.lassila@research.nokia.com
Larry Masinter, Xerox PARC, masinter@parc.xerox.com
Murray Maloney, SoftQuad, murray@sq.com
Jim Miller, World Wide Web Consortium, jmiller@w3.org
Andrew Schulert, Microsoft, andyschu@microsoft.com
Christopher Seiwald, Perforce Software, seiwald@perforce.com
Richard Taylor, U.C. Irvine, taylor@ics.uci.edu
Robert Thau, MIT, rst@ai.mit.edu
6. References
[1] T. Berners-Lee, D. Connolly. "HyperText Markup Language
Specification - 2.0." RFC 1866, MIT/LCS, November 1995.
[2] T. Berners-Lee, L. Masinter, M. McCahill. "Uniform Resource
Locators (URL)." RFC 1738, CERN, Xerox PARC, University of Minnesota,
December 1994.
[3] R. Fielding, J. Gettys, J. C. Mogul, H. Frystyk, and
T. Berners-Lee. "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1." RFC 2068,
U.C. Irvine, DEC, MIT/LCS, January 1997.
[4] A. Haake, D. Hicks. "VerSE: Towards Hypertext Versioning Styles",
Proc. Hypertext'96, the Seventh ACM Conference on Hypertext, 1996,
pages 224-234.
Authors' Addresses
Judith Slein
Xerox Corporation
800 Phillips Road 128-29E
Webster, NY 14580
EMail: slein@wrc.xerox.com
Fabio Vitali
Department of Computer Science
University of Bologna
ITALY
EMail: fabio@cs.unibo.it
E. James Whitehead, Jr.
Department of Information and Computer Science
University of California
Irvine, CA 92697-3425
Fax: 714-824-4056
EMail: ejw@ics.uci.edu
David G. Durand
Department of Computer Science
Boston University
Boston, MA
EMail: dgd@cs.bu.edu
Expires August 28, 1997
Name: Judith A. Slein
E-Mail: slein@wrc.xerox.com
Internal Phone: 8*222-5169
External Phone: (716) 422-5169
Fax: (716) 265-7133
MailStop: 128-29E
Received on Sunday, 23 February 1997 15:39:32 UTC