Re: Re (2): I-D for WebDAV methods - APPEND and PATCH

On Aug 15, 2006, at 2:33 PM, edgar@edgarschwarz.de wrote:

> After reading the old drafts and also Roys comments:
> - I would definitly go with Content-Type to give the diff algorithm.
>   Please no additional header :-(
> - Find a simple mandatory binary diff which is free of IPR.
>   I'm no lawyer, but could it help to use a binary diff I use
>   for years now in an esoteric system called Oberon from ETH Zuerich.
>   Nobody complained about it in all these years :-)

Can you try to verify its licensing status?  It would be great to  
have an unburdened generally-useful diff algorithm.

There are also two possible XML diff algorithms: Jara Urpalainen's,  
and Adrian Mouat's.  Both have been published as Internet-Drafts in  
the past.

>   Only joking, but can anybody tell me what the problem with gdiff  
> is ?

The gdiff algorithm doesn't have a Content-Type.  To register a  
content-type, I think we'd have to publish an Internet-Draft: see  
http://www.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-types/2004-September/ 
000410.html.   I believe we'd be OK publishing an I-D with just the  
IANA form and a reference to the W3C note, but I haven't gotten  
around to that yet.  Help welcome.

(BTW in hunting down this reference I found the time-range that saw  
lots of discussion on the HTTP WG list on the PATCH stuff: http:// 
lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/2004AprJun/ and http:// 
lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/2004JulSep/)

Another candidate is VCDIff, but it's unclear how broadly VCDIff may  
be used. See <http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/ATT-draft-korn-vcdiff>,  
and note it's limited to HTTP1.1.  Does that mean RFC2616 only or  
does it include specs that extend HTTP 1.1 while retaining that  
protocol version header? IANAL.

> - NO APPEND.
> Perhaps Lisa and Suma could collaborate and provide a new draft.
> And if somebody decides to go to another list. Please tell me to  
> subscribe
> to it :-)
> OTOH I think that PATCH has a special importance in the context of
> versioning. So perhaps it could be a good idea to find a rough  
> consensus
> here before going to the HTTP jungle.
Thanks for the comments.
Lisa

Received on Tuesday, 15 August 2006 22:39:42 UTC