The WebDAV Book of Why - V. Alpha 2

1 The WebDAV Book of Why

V.Alpha 2 - 02/14/99 2:39 PM

1.1 Introduction

This is my personal collection of posts from the WebDAV mailing list. I use
this collection to save me time in answering questions about the design of
the WebDAV distributed authoring standard. In here you will find answers to
everything you ever wanted to know, but were wise enough not to ask, about
how WebDAV ended up the way it did.

Many of these papers contain histories of how various features were
developed. Almost all the histories are wrong. The reason they are wrong is
that:
a) I have a lousy memory
b) I didn't bother to actually research my answers
c) All of the above

On the other hand I have been reviewing some of the old drafts, meeting
notes and mailing lists and there is quite a story in there. Did you know
that WebDAV was originally written to use POST? That WebDAV had support for
fully distributed searching and eventing? We have all the drafts, all the
meeting notes and the entire mail archive. I'm sure there is a researcher
out there who would just love to dive in to a fully documented history of
the development of a protocol. For more information please contact Jim
Whitehead, chief librarian and head researcher of the WebDAV archives.

Disclaimer:

Nothing said here is official, binding, normative, a standard or
representative of working group consensus. The official history of the
working group is contained in the meeting minutes, the mailing list and the
untold drafts the working group produced. The final word on all standards
issues is the RFC and failing that, working group consensus.

1.2 Changes

This is the second Alpha release of this reference. Each entry is marked
with the version number, V. Alpha 1 or V. Alpha 2 to indicate when it was
added to the reference.

1.3 Index

1	The WebDAV Book of Why
1.1	Introduction
1.2	Changes
1.3	Index
2	A History of WebDAV's Property Design -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1998OctDec/0074.html - V
Alpha 1
3	The DAV Property/Message Object Model -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1998JulSep/0044.html - V
Alpha 1
4	Collections, Resourcetype and Hierarchy in WebDAV -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1998OctDec/0305.html - V
Alpha 1
4.1	Why Did WebDAV Decide that the HTTP URL Namespace is a Hierarchy?
4.2	Why Did WebDAV Create Resource Types like the Collection Resource?
4.3	Why Did WebDAV Create the Resourcetype Property?
4.4	Why Did WebDAV Create MKCOL?
4.5	Why Did WebDAV Allow for Mixed WebDAV and Non-WebDAV Compliant
Namespaces?
4.6	Why Does WebDAV Allow for non-WebDAV Compliant Collections?
4.7	Why Does WebDAV Require Hierarchy in WebDAV Only Namespaces?
4.7.1	Client Hierarchy Requirements
4.7.2	Server Hierarchy Requirements
4.7.3	The Working Group Analysis
5	Whatever Happened to the Destroy Header and the UNDELETE method? -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JanMar/0111.html - V
Alpha 2
6	A History of Copy and Move -
6.1	COPY and Methods -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JanMar/0096.html - V
Alpha 2
6.2	COPY and Properties -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JanMar/0097.html - V
Alpha 2
6.3	Why MOVE isn't really defined as a COPY followed by a DELETE -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JanMar/0125.html - V
Alpha 2
7	Why MOVE Eats Write Locks -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1997JulSep/0177.html - V
Alpha 2
8	Why Multi-Status is a 2xx Response -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JanMar/0128.html - V
Alpha 2
9	How WebDAV Uses the Value argument in defining XML elements -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1999JanMar/0113.html - V
Alpha 2
10	Levels of HTTP Nirvana or POST Vs. New Methods -
http://xent.ics.uci.edu/FoRK-archive/feb98/0238.html - V Alpha 1
11	When to Use the Header vs. the Body for Method Arguments -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1998JulSep/0113.html - V
Alpha 1
12	HTTP Design Issues, lessons from WebDAV's Property and Depth header
experiences -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1998OctDec/0303.html - V
Alpha 1
12.1	Skipping to the End
12.1.1	Side Note
12.2	Why I Bother
12.3	This is another fine protocol you've gotten me into!
12.4	Out of our Depth
13	Ramifications of WebDAV's property design decisions -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1998OctDec/0302.html - V
Alpha 1
13.1	Introduction
13.2	Design Principals
13.3	POST
13.4	Severability
13.5	Is it live or is it Memorex?
13.6	Schemas
13.7	Conclusion
14	XML Attributes and the WebDAV object model -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1998JulSep/0084.html - V
Alpha 1
14.1	Dumbing Down Data Structures -
14.2	Killing Extensibility -
15	Versioning, Collections and Sources -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1998OctDec/0280.html - V
Alpha 1
16	Larry Masinter’s Excellent Advice on how to structure early protocol
Drafts -
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/1997AprJun/0246.html - V
Alpha 2

Received on Sunday, 14 February 1999 17:53:01 UTC