RE: [ACL] Principal Identity

At 10:35 PM -0800 11/20/01, Lisa Dusseault wrote:
>The definition of dead properties is not clear enough to make that proposal
>a basis for interoperability.
>
>... Can clients
>rely on these properties being listed in 'allprop' or not?  On some servers
>but not on others?  Ugh.
>
>That's why I think only a fixed list of properties can be relied upon to be
>in allprop.  Let's rely on 'propname' to actually tell us the complete list
>of properties, whether they're alive, dead, or somewhere in between.

You and I seem to be going in exact opposite directions on this one, 
and I think it's because we have different ideas of what constitutes 
interoperability with respect to ALLPROP.

You seem to feel that interoperability means that all servers return 
the same properties in response to an ALLPROP.  And I would agree 
that this can only be satisfied by specifying ALLPROP as meaning a 
fixed set of properties, as you suggest.

I feel that interoperability means that existing clients will 
continue to work "as well as possible" with the new definition of 
ALLPROP.  Since ALLPROP originally meant "all properties," and the 
objection has been "that can be too expensive for servers," I think 
the compromise is to have ALLPROP mean "as many of the defined 
properties as the server feels it's reasonable to compute."

I think Geoff's suggestion (DAV live props and all dead ones) is a 
good guideline for servers, both because these properties are 
presumably cheap and because an existing client who just set a dead 
property is likely to be very surprised when ALLPROP doesn't return 
it.  I suggested adding "at least" because I think that gives servers 
the proper control over just how interoperable they want to be with 
old clients.

Probably the place you and I really agree is that we'd both rather 
see ALLPROP go away entirely :^).  But I think we also agree that 
such a move would be too backward-incompatible.

     dan

>
>Lisa
>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org
>>  [mailto:w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Clemm, Geoff
>>  Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2001 5:11 AM
>>  To: Webdav WG
>>  Subject: RE: [ACL] Principal Identity
>>
>>
>>  I believe that when we revise 2518, that that the
>>  new DAV:allprop behavior should be defined to be
>>  "all live properties defined in RFC 2518 plus all
>>  dead properties".  Since 2518 states that it is *all*
>>  properties (both live and dead), making this direction
>>  clear now will allow clients to rely on dead+2518
>>  properties.
>>
>>  Cheers,
>>  Geoff
>>
>>  -----Original Message-----
>>  From: Lisa Dusseault [mailto:lisa@xythos.com]
>>  Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 1:40 AM
>>  To: Stefan Eissing; Jim Whitehead; Webdav WG
>>  Subject: RE: [ACL] Principal Identity
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  > The nice thing about allprop is that you get all the dead properties.
>>  > The bad thing about allprop is that you cannot see if a resource is
>>  > versioned/version or which methods it does support.
>>
>>  How do you know you can get all the dead properties?  'allprop' as defined
>>  in RFC2518 seems to have to change, yet we've not clearly defined a new
>>  behaviour.  In the meantime, I don't believe clients can rely on getting
>>  anything back in 'allprop' except the live properties defined in RFC2518.
>>
>>  Lisa


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Daniel Brotsky, Adobe Systems
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Received on Wednesday, 21 November 2001 20:47:37 UTC