RE: Issue: URI_URL, proposed changes

According to RFC2518, the primary purpose of the source link is
specifically that it "identifies the resource that contains the
unprocessed source of the link's source" (RFC2518, 13.10).
Furthermore "there is typically only one destination (dst) of the
link, which is the URI where the unprocessed source of the resource
may be accessed."  Thus it not only identifies the unprocessed source,
but it typically allows you to access it at that URI.

Furthermore, in the section 5.4 motivating the DAV:source property, it is
stated: "if remote editing of the source resource(s) is desired, the
source resource(s) should be given a location in the URI namespace."
This provides further motivation for understanding the DAV:source
property as intended to identify the location in the URI namespace for
editing.

So perhaps this just a question of guidance to a DAV:src implementor:

- Best: Provide an authorable URL (where of course both READ and WRITE
privileges are controlled by the ACL of the resource at that URL)

- Better than nothing: Provide a URL, where you can at least view the 
unprocessed source, or information about the unprocessed source.

- Just slightly better than nothing: A URI that identifies the unprocessed
source, but does let you either access it there (either for READ or WRITE).

Cheers,
Geoff

-----Original Message-----
From: Roy T. Fielding [mailto:fielding@apache.org]

>> In order to author a resource via the DAV:dst URI,
>> minimally, you have to locate the resource (i.e. the
>
> I don't agree that it's a requirement that the resource being referred to
> must be authorable. For a server, it's almost impossible to decide which
> kinds of URIs are useful to an authoring client. So I wouldn't restrict 
> them
> at all.

Right.  It would also be useful to be able to tell the authoring
client which sources are not authorable by them, but the best we can
do is give the client a URI that they may or may not be able to author.
The primary purpose of the source link is to provide metadata about
the resource to the user of the authoring client.

Cheers,

Roy T. Fielding, Chief Scientist, Day Software
                  (roy.fielding@day.com) <http://www.day.com/>

                  Chairman, The Apache Software Foundation
                  (fielding@apache.org)  <http://www.apache.org/>

Received on Wednesday, 31 July 2002 15:11:00 UTC