Subject: Future direction for DASL/WebDAV SEARCH

From: "Jim Whitehead" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:59:37 -0700

All,

I'm interested in people's thoughts on how to proceed with the DASL
specification.

The DASL protocol, in its current form, has a great deal of effort and
maturity. Its well-specified enough such that there are multiple
interoperating implementations. Though it has limitations, it is very useful
in its current form. This argues for issuing the current specification as an
RFC, either standards track or experimental.

On the other hand, there are many features that would be nice to have added.
Some imply significant changes, as with proper sort ordering and comparator
evaluation of dead properties which implies adding a type system to WebDAV
properties. As well, handling XML querying intelligently would be a plus,
but would also require much work. This argues for creating a new working
group to address further development of DASL. It might make sense to involve
a wider audience, perhaps by including people in the W3C community
interested in protocols for XML searching.

So, there are a couple of choices:

a) Do we issue current specification more-or-less as-is?
   i) as Proposed
   ii) as Experimental
b) Do we continue development of the specification?
   i) within WebDAV community only
     - as new WG? in DAV WG?
   ii) expand community to address Web/XML searching in general, not
necessarily focused on WebdAV
     - as IETF WG? as W3C activity?

There are probably other choices as well.

Let me know what your thoughts are.

Thanks!

- Jim

---

From: "Julian Reschke" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2003 09:45:31 +0200

Jim,

funny coincidence - I was just in the process of raising the issue myself.

Let's start with a look at the open issues:

	<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-search-issues.html>

I think they mostly fall into two categories:

1) marshalling (these issues can probably be resolved quickly if we just get
enough people looking at them, trying to find a simple solution)

2) typing/sorting

During the Interim WG meeting in January, we discussed 2):

	<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2003JanMar/0075.html>

In particular, I remember that we agreed that in order to get typing in DASL
right, we need it first implemented in the basic WebDAV property model. So
we should decide whether

a) we leave datatyping out of DASL, fix the remaining issues or

b) try to define basic datatyping in properties first, and then let DASL
build on it.

(In both cases I'd suggest to submit the draft as experimental).

I feel that b) is the way to go, because there doesn't seem to be a portable
way to have queries on non-string values unless we have a way to identify
them.

Our (that is greenbytes/SAP, not the WG :-) current proposal for datatype
marshalling in PROPFIND/PROPPATCH is here:

<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-property-datatypes-05
.html>

We dicussed this draft in January as well, and I think we need to decide on
the following issues to proceed:

- should this be a working group activity (my recollection: yes)

- do we need a separate requirements document (I'd say: no, let's just state
them in the Introduction)

- where should the discussion happen (DASL mailing list or WebDAV mailing
list)?

- should the draft concentrate just on data typing, or should it also try to
handle additional metadata just like it does now (hidden flag, protected
flag, displayname information)

I personally think that the core part of the draft is mature enough (it's
first version is over two years old, and since then, the core feature set
has been absolutely stable). So if we leave the advanced stuff out, we could
possibly get if finished very soon.

Julian

--
<green/>bytes GmbH -- http://www.greenbytes.de -- tel:+492512807760

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked]
> [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of Jim Whitehead
> Sent: Monday, September 29, 2003 11:00 PM
> To: WebDAV; [email-masked]
> Subject: Future direction for DASL/WebDAV SEARCH
>
>
>
> All,
>