Versioning implications for Referencing

I have just been looking at Section 2.8 (Sharing) of the Versioning spec,
which proposes to add a new type of reference beyond those defined in the
Advanced Collections spec.

Since the 2 specs are being developed in parallel, and the Advanced
Collections spec is far from being cast in concrete, it seems as if we
should be able to adjust the referencing provisions of the Advanced
Collections spec to satisfy the needs of Versioning.

If PIN is the only method that needs to apply to the reference rather than
its target, one solution might be to add PIN to the list of methods that do
*not* get passed through for direct references.

If the situation is more complex than this, we could add the semi-direct
reference proposed in the Versioning spec to the Advanced Collections spec.
However, it doesn't seem to me very useful to have both semi-direct and
direct references.  Since semi-direct references behave exactly like direct
references by default, it may make more sense to keep just redirect and
direct references, but to add a Ref-Behavior header for use with any request
on a direct reference.  If the header has a value of DAV:redirect, it makes
the reference behave like a redirect reference -- the request affects the
reference itself rather than its target.

--Judy

Judith A. Slein
Xerox Corporation
jslein@crt.xerox.com
(716)422-5169
800 Phillips Road 105/50C
Webster, NY 14580

Received on Monday, 2 November 1998 10:19:32 UTC