RE: rfc2518-bis-05 issues (part 1) - DAV: Scheme

I support Julian's observation about the paragraph on use of the "DAV:" 
URI scheme.  The earlier statement snarls up scheme names and Namespace
URIs too much.

I proposed the following amendment, although I am not entirely happy
with it.  It is not clear to me what this provides. It is informative.
Is there anything more to say about this.  I.e., are we promising not
to do this again, not to expand it beyond the current approach to DAV
interoperability preservation, or what?  

Finally, section 19's discussion about what IANA must do (!?) should be
repaired to identify the two *URI*schemes* that must be registered, the one
for "DAV:" URIs and the one for "opaquelocktoken:" URIs.  IANA does not
register namespaces, and that language should be removed from section 19.

Furthermore,
it seems inappropriate to embed a requirement for some third-party in the
body of the DAV specification.  It would seem that the DAV WG must take
responsibility for ensuring that there is appropriate reservation of the
DAV and opaquelocktoken schemes, and section 19 should assert that such
reservation has been accomplished (and a reference would be useful).


AMENDED CHANGE PROPOSAL

-05 section 4.4, last paragraph: 

   Note that “DAV:” is a scheme name defined solely to provide a
   namespace for WebDAV XML elements and property names.  This practice
   is discouraged in part because registration of new scheme names is
   difficult. "DAV:" was defined as the WebDAV namespace before
   standard best practices emerged, and this namespace is kept and
   still used because of significant existing deployments, but this
   should not be emulated.

rewrite as:

   Note that both defining a new URI scheme just for the purpose of 
   identifying protocol elements and using just the scheme name as a 
   namespace name are inconsistent with current best practice.  Use
   of the "DAV:" and "opaquelocktoken:" URIs is preserved for 
   compatibility with existing deployments. There will be no further
   introduction of new URI schemes as part of DAV. 

-- Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org
[mailto:w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Julian Reschke
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 12:18
To: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
Subject: rfc2518-bis-05 issues (part 1)



Hi.

Below is a list of issues I raised against drafts 03 and 04 which IMHO 
have not been adequately addressed in the latest draft (see [1] for the 
original message).


03-C03

4.4: “Note that the use of a new top-level URI identifier as a namespace 
is considered by many to be a bad thing…”


Rewrite as:

“Note that both defining a new URI scheme just for the purpose of 
identifying protocol elements, and using just the scheme name as a 
namespace name is to be considered a bad practice, and should not be 
copied”.

[draft 05 now says...]

    Note that “DAV:” is a scheme name defined solely to provide a
    namespace for WebDAV XML elements and property names.  This practice
    is discouraged in part because registration of new scheme names is
    difficult. "DAV:" was defined as the WebDAV namespace before
    standard best practices emerged, and this namespace is kept and
    still used because of significant existing deployments, but this
    should not be emulated.

[ ... ]

[1] <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2003JulSep/0040.html>

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Received on Saturday, 1 November 2003 11:44:29 UTC