RE: Collections and Recursion

Great questions.  Some replies.

On Thursday, August 21, 1997 6:23 AM, Judith Slein 
[SMTP:slein@wrc.xerox.com] wrote:
> I'd like to know more about what happened at Munich relative to recursive
> operations on collections.

Short answer: recursive operation for copy, move, lock, and delete are 
being moved to a separate specification.  At present, the DAV protocol 
spec. will only specify level 0 operations (or should it be level infinity 
operations?)

> How will copy, move, delete, lock work for collections in webdav?

This is the focus of the new specification, which will start using the 
recursive operation descriptions in draft-ietf-webdav-protocol-01.txt as 
its base, as modified by discussion at Orem.

> What schedule will that separate spec be
> on?

This is still TBD, but I hope this spec. will pop out the door a few months 
after the base specification. I still need to work out with Saveen Reddy a 
schedule for development of this document.

> Will it be developed by the webdav working group?

Yes.  This is still within our charter -- it's just a spec. 
packaging/timing issue.

> I'm especially concerned because recursive operations were one of the 
things
> that made collections attractive as a way of managing compound documents.
> Recursion would have made it possible to move, copy, etc., an entire
> compound document in one step -- to treat it as a single object.

Recursive operations will not be ignored, they will just be developed at a 
slower rate than the base specification.  The intent of this decision is to 
remove a contentious item from the base specification to allow it to 
progress faster.  What I have been hearing from vendors interested in 
implementing WebDAV is the need for speed so that WebDAV doesn't miss the 
next round of development cycles.

This isn't a repeat of SEARCH, which grew so big it needs its own working 
group.

- Jim

Received on Thursday, 21 August 1997 21:53:41 UTC