Re: Thoughts on relation to WebDAV

Petr Tomasek wrote:
> But every webdav client I've seen REQUIRES the DAV-header to operate on
> an URL as on a WebDAV collection. So it means You would practically disalow
> any partial (e.g. a read-only) WebDAV implementation, even if it works
> correctly and the full-fledged functionality is not needed at all!
>  

What the hell is a "read-only WebDAV implementation"? WebD*A*V is about 
*Authoring*. There is no read-only authoring. Enabling write-operations 
is at the very heart of WebDAV. If any server cannot support it, it 
should not claim to do WebDAV.

What you are talking about is an HTTP-Server with some extensions taken 
from WebDAV or maybe others. But what WebDAV-methods from RFC 4918 could 
a read-only server implement? PROPFIND, and nothing else.


Please do not mix up two things:

- servers that do not support certain required methods at all:
   they are simple not WebDAV-servers and should respond with
   status code 501 to such requests.

- refusing requests on certain resources or under certain
   circumstances:
   this is allowed and treated with in the spec. Usually 4xx status
   codes are appropriate. But this implies, that the same kind of
   request can be successful for another resource or under other
   circumstances.

BTW: 403 Forbidden is *not* related to authorization; that's 401.

Werner

Received on Saturday, 24 May 2008 16:14:48 UTC