Updated DASL Charter

Thanks for everyone's feedback on the DASL charter. I included a new
version of it below. I look forward to any further comments.

Thanks,
-Saveen

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     DAV Searching and Locating (DASL)

     Last Modified: 01-06-97

     Chair(s):

        TBD

     Applications Area Director(s):

        Keith Moore, <moore@cs.utk.edu>
        Harald Alvestrand <Harald.T.Alvestrand@uninett.no>

     Applications Area Advisor:

        TBD

     Mailing Lists:

        General Discussion:  www-webdav-dasl@w3.org

        To Subscribe:  www-webdav-dasl-request@w3.og put subscribe in
        body

        Archive:  http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-webdav-dasl/

     Description of Working Group

        The goal of this working group is to provide searching
        interoperability among the variety of underlying storage
        systems whose data can be exposed by the WEBDAV extensions to
        HTTP. The working group will define HTTP extensions that enable
        the location of network resources based upon their property
        values and text content.

        The WEBDAV protocol defines a simple set of mechanisms to
        manipulate and retrieve properties on resources. Interaction is
        at the level of a single resource. WEBDAV provides no mechanism
        to locate efficiently the set of resources matching user-
        desired criteria on properties and content. The mechanisms
        defined in WEBDAV provide only the most primitive support for
        this operation, one that requires extensive processing and
        network usage by the client. Furthermore, the WEBDAV mechanisms
        do not take advantage of the advanced querying and caching
        capabilities of many storage systems.

     Scope

        A generalized Search mechanism is a broad problem space. It
        encompasses a variety of object models, typing schemes, and
        media. By focusing on a subset of this space, the problem of
        locating resources based on property values and text content,
        the working group will leverage much of the existing work that
        has been done on querying under simple property and media
        models. The subset is one that involves typing in property
        values, relative comparisons of property values (>, >=, <,
        etc.), internationalized content, and simple text content
        matching.

        Items excluded from the immediate scope of the working group
        include definitions of default property sets, server-to-server
        communication protocols, and searching for non-text content
        (images, video, audio, etc.).

     Deliverables

        The final output of this working group is expected to be two
        documents:

        (1) A requirements document, that describes the high-level
        functional requirements for DASL, including rationale. This
        will be an Informational document.

        (2) A protocol specification describing the additions to WEBDAV
        (new methods, headers, request bodies, and response bodies)
        needed to implement the DASL requirements. This will be a
        Standards Track document.

     Goals and Milestones:

        Done - Draft Working Group Charter. Establish mailing list,
        archive, and homepage.

        Feb 98 - Produce initial Requirements document. Submit as
        Internet Draft.

        Mar 98 - Produce DASL specification. Submit as Internet Draft.

        Mar 98 - Meet in LA IETF and hold working group meeting to
        develop the protocol specification and requirements document.

        Aug 98 - Meet in Chicago IETF to further develop protocol
        specification

        Oct 98 - Create final version of DASL requirements document.
        Submit as Informational RFC.

        Mar 99 - Complete revisions to DASL. Submit as a Proposed
        Standard RFC

Received on Wednesday, 14 January 1998 14:30:52 UTC