RE: Why DASL need not be DAV-specific

I agree with your recommendation.

- Surendra

On 2 Mar 1998, Jim Davis wrote:

> At 01:56 PM 3/2/98 PST, Yaron Goland wrote:
> 
> > The reason why this working group was formed was to solve search for DAV.
> > ... to provide search facilities which make optimal use of the DAV object
> > model, repository model, variant model, access control model, and versioning
> > model...Universal Search is a laudable goal but one that will require 
> > compromises we are not willing to make.
> 
> Perhaps we could all agree as follows:
> 
> 1) DASL MUST fully support WebDAV repositories efficiently.
> 2) DASL MAY also support other HTTP applications, if such support imposes
> only minor costs (e.g. in added complexity.)
> 
> To elaborate on the second point, at present, it seems to me the only DAV
> feature that DASL requires is a property store.  Given that we're using XML
> to express queries, it would be very easy to generalize the notion of
> 'property' to support  property stores other than that of DAV.  Surely this
> is not objectionable?
> 
> We're talking about the difference between (to use an utterly fabricated
> query syntax)
> 
> <D:contains>
>  <D:prop> <X:author/></D:prop>
>  <D:value>Knuth</D:value>
> 
> and
> 
> <D:contains>
>  <D:prop><d:dma-guid>123762-72738</d:dma-guid></D:prop>
>  <D:value>Knuth</D:value>
> 
> Something like that.
> 
> As I noted in earlier email, it will also require means to specify query
> scope, which may be a bit trickier to generalize, but not too hard.
> 
> It may well turn out that when we get into details, there will be something
> about DAV that will be too hard to generalize, or something about e.g. LDAP
> or Z39.50 that would impose a great penalty on DAV.  If either of these
> happen, we should discard the attempt to be universal.
> 
> Is this an acceptable framing of the charter?
> 
> In the meantime, we can scarcely design DASL's interactions with the
> variant, access control, or versioning models of DAV, before these are
> designed.  I at least haven't seen any sign of progress on any of these
> fronts.  Can you provide any guidance?
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------
> http://www.parc.xerox.com/jdavis/
> 650-812-4301
> 
>

Received on Monday, 2 March 1998 18:46:21 UTC