Re: Impact of XML 1.1 and namespaces 1.1 on WebDAV

On Saturday, November 16, 2002, at 01:57 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:
> I'm in violent diasgreement.
>
> The principle you mention is one of the biggest factors leading to
> interoperability. If servers do not reject non-compliant requests, 
> clients
> do not get fixed. If clients do not get fixed, other server 
> implementors are
> forced to implement "workarounds" as well. We already see the results 
> of
> this within WebDAV -- almost everybody has workarounds in the server 
> code to
> please the most-deployed but worst-supported client (Microsoft 
> webfolders).
>
> While doing this sometimes is unavoidable in real life, putting this 
> into
> the protocol is a completely different story.

Julian,

The principal you object to (Postel's robustness principal, spelled out
in RFC-793, the TCP/IP draft), informs the design of many IETF
protocols, especially when dealing with issues of backward
compatibility.  Within the IETF, this principal is believed to
increase interoperability, in contrast to what you state.

As for forcing servers to reject non-compliant requests, I think
we'll all agree that non-compliant implementations are a problem,
but how can the protocol document force these implementations
into compliance?  And if vendor Y decides to interoperate with
non-compliant vendor X, there is little that this working group
can do to prohibit vendor Y from doing so.

On the subject of certain non-compliant clients, if we were to
prohibit the accepting of XML1.1, what effect would you expect
that prohibition to have on the decisions made by the vendors of
such clients?

Eric, I don't recall if you stated the client requirements.  Did you
expect that clients would be permitted to generate XML1.1?

Note, the above should not be construed as an argument either for or
against WebDAV support for XML1.1.

-brian
briank@xythos.com

Received on Saturday, 16 November 2002 17:37:12 UTC