Subject: RE: A case for GETSRC (or other mechanism to that effect)

From: "Clemm, Geoff" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 09:04:25 -0500

As I recall, I was willing to consider the Translate header
or a GETSRC method, if I was the only one who found them
objectionable.  I consider a separate URL space for authoring
a superior approach, since I believe separate URL spaces
are a simpler model, and one that will prove to be more
extensible.  It also is very compatible with common web server
extension mechanisms, which allow you to dispatch to different
modules based on what part of the URL space you are operating in.

So with support from Julian, it no longer is "just me", so I
revert to my natural position, which is against both the
Translate header or a GETSRC method.

Cheers,
Geoff

-----Original Message-----
From: Julian Reschke [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 6:12 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: A case for GETSRC (or other mechanism to that effect)

>From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On
Behalf Of Eric Sedlar
>Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 10:43 AM
>To: Peter Raymond; Julian Reschke; [email-masked]
>Subject: RE: A case for GETSRC (or other mechanism to that effect)
>
>
>Comments inlined...

To all: please do not post in HTML. It makes commenting hard, and it breaks
the web archive.

>The proposal would be that Translate: F would only have an effect on the
GET method, and could be either ignored or forbidden on other methods ( one
of the nits that Geoff picked at >at the dinner where we won him over)...

I see. I guess he dind't have to pay his bill either :-)

>There is certainly interoperability for Translate: F, so I don't see why
that needs to go into a separate spec.

It's not defined in RFC2518, so it can't easily be put into it's revision.
If you want to put it in, you'll have to get agreement on lots of issues
(some of which we already discussed). As there currently is *no* technical
documentation about the Translate header, it will be hard to get proper
definitions of it's semantics (saying: "whatever Frontpage does" doesn't
count).

>>- I am also interested in managing more than just websites and may need a
more advanced way of
>>  navigating relationships (perhaps between design documents and the code
that implements them or
>>  between firmware and circuit board designs etc).  This can best be
addressed in another specification.
>The issue of how the executable is generated is a separate question from
getting at the executable content itself (see my reply to Julian's email).
>Regards,

I think you currently consider only a few special use cases. DAV:source was
designed to address a more generic problem. I think it can be fixed, and we
should try this.

---

From: "Julian Reschke" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 15:39:18 +0100

See <http://www.greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc2518.html#ELEMENT_href>.

RFC2518 says that the contents of DAV:href is a URI as defined by RFC2068
(which should be updated to refer to RFC2396).

The spec seems to be consistent with this (all examples include protocol and
authority).

However, Apache moddav only returns relative URI references (protocol and
authority are missing), so technically doesn't return URIs at all. Microsoft
IIS returns correct URIs. All clients seem to be happy with both.

So,

1) either Apache moddav should be fixed, or
2) RFC2518 should allow relative URI references.

*If* we go with 2), the spec will have to define which base URI needs to be
used to resolve the URI reference to a full URI (the request URI comes to
mind). Note that this would allow new kinds of PROPFIND responses that
*will* not interoperate with many clients:

PROPFIND /foo/bar
Depth: 1

..

<multistatus>
  <reponse>
    <href/>
    ...
  </response>
  <response>
    <href>child-of-bar</href>
    ..
  </response>
</multistatus>

(This could be avoided by saying that the base URI *always* is
"<protocol>://<host>:<port>/").