Subject: RE: Last Call: draft-ietf-webdav-rfc2518bis (HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring - WebDAV) to Proposed Standard

From: "Kevin Wiggen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:36:28 -0800

I think what the spec needs is some love and attention.  If enough of us
(and I will volunteer to READ and COMMENT) spend time on this, I think
we can come to some sort of resolution.  I would hate to see the work
done by the working group, Geoff, Julian, Lisa, etc go to waste.  

It seems to me this is a prioritization problem, and I promise to raise
my level of participation if everyone else commits to do the same.
(Although I am a little reluctant as the LAST spec is still sitting in
my office being used as scrap paper - I am on page 62 of 135, I really
should have double sided it)....

As we support Webdav in our Server Product and Client Product (which is
also used by SAP, Oracle, etc) I would like a revision, but one we can
live with. 

"Let them have their tartar sauce" - Charles Montgomery Burns

Kevin

From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
On Behalf Of Cullen Jennings
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 12:44 PM
To: Manfred Baedke; Geoffrey M Clemm
Cc: [email-masked]; WebDav
Subject: Re: Last Call: draft-ietf-webdav-rfc2518bis (HTTP Extensions
for Distributed Authoring - WebDAV) to Proposed Standard

Julian's draft has been around for a very long time and I think that you
have suggested we just adopt it before so the WG certainly has been
aware of this option. The bulk of this draft has been available to the
WG for many months if not years and the WG did choose to use text out of
parts of this draft. 

The WG has almost no people in it at this point and very little energy
to do any work. What you are proposing here is that  we could toss out
the current work,  and start over with a new individual contributor
document as the base document. At the peak of the WGs productivity, I
would estimate this would take about two years not two months to get to
WGLC. At the current rate of progress I would have to expect
significantly longer. 

Cullen <with my WebDav WG chair hat on> 

On Jan 19, 2007, at 7:50 AM, Manfred Baedke wrote:

This sounds very sensible to me.

Regards,
Manfred

Geoffrey M Clemm wrote: 

First, my appreciation to everyone that has participated in the recent
push 
to produce a revision of RFC-2518.   

I have reviewed rfc2518bis-17, as well as the remaining issues in
bugzilla 
and the document: 
<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-rfc2518bis-latest
..html>
<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-rfc2518bis-latest
..html>  

I believe that a significantly better document could be produced within
the 
next 2 months, based on reschcke document. 

I would like to see action on the current bis document be deferred for 
that period of time, with the explicit goal of giving the working group 
an opportunity to evaluate and express a preference between the two
alternatives. 
We'll be living with the rfc2518bis document for a long time, so I
believe 
this extra two months would be time well spent. 

Cheers, 
Geoff 

Julian wrote on 01/15/2007 11:42:50 AM:
> 
> The IESG schrieb:
> > The IESG has received a request from the WWW Distributed Authoring
> and Versioning WG (webdav) to consider the following document:
> >
> > - 'HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring - WebDAV '
> >    <draft-ietf-webdav-rfc2518bis-17.txt> as a Proposed Standard
> > ...
> 
> ...
> At the time of this writing, there were over fifty issues opened 
> against the specification (see <http://ietf.osafoundation.org:
> 8080/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?product=WebDAV-RFC2518-bis>). For many of 
> them there were suggestions resolving the problems with spec-ready 
> text (all mention some of them later on).
> 
> ...
> 
> For many of the open issues there *are* proposals how to resolve 
> them. The recommended changes are recorded both in the issue tracker
(<
> http://ietf.osafoundation.org:8080/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?
> product=WebDAV-RFC2518-bis>) and an experimental draft available at <
>
file:///C:/projects/xml2rfc/draft-reschke-webdav-rfc2518bis-latest.html
<file:///C:\projects\xml2rfc\draft-reschke-webdav-rfc2518bis-latest.html
> 
> >. The latter does not resolve *all* open issues *yet*, mainly in an
> attempt to keep the differences to the Working Group's document to a
> manageable size.
> 
> So I would appreciate if reviewers not only take a look at RFC2518 
> and the Last Call draft, but also to the resources above.

---

From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:16:26 -0800

At 1:36 PM -0800 1/19/07, Kevin Wiggen wrote:
>I think what the spec needs is some love and attention.  If enough of us (and I will volunteer to READ and COMMENT) spend time on this, I think we can come to some sort of resolution.  I would hate to see the work done by the working group, Geoff, Julian, Lisa, etc go to waste.
 
I would also hate to see the work of this working group go to waste.  But I do not
believe that an additional two months, starting with a document that is not
up to date or the product of working group discussion, is at all a practical
time estimate.  As its Area Advisor, I gave this working group a six month
time line to finish its work eighteen months ago.  The last three months of
that period saw more significant activity than the working group had had
in the previous year.  Close to the deadline, Cullen asked that the WG be
extended as there were a few final issues that needed resolution. 

We are now almost a year on from that point.  Suggesting that an additional
two months would resolve things is, bluntly, completely contrary to the
experience of this WG. 

The first draft of this document was issued  *five years ago*.  If it is better
than 2518, it is time to push it out the door and making a new line in the sand. 
Too much of what to do with webdav is now "lore" in the heads of the
current implementors and unavailable without sifting through the WG
archives.  I believe getting this document out will help, even if it does not solve
the problem completely or meet its original goal (to get to Draft Standard).

That doesn't preclude there ever being a 2518ter or a Draft Standard here.
But with the current inputs, we are well past the point of diminishing returns.
Getting this document out as a Proposed Standard seems to me, both personally
and as the working group's area advisor, the best balance of retaining the work
that has been done and setting the stage for eventual further work.

				Ted Hardie

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 14:46:02 +0100

> up to date or the product of working group discussion, is at all a practical

Ted, could you please elaborate why you think the document is not "up to 
date"? It is based on draft 17, and during the past year, I've made sure 
that any change that has been applied to the WG draft has been applied 
to my document as well (see 
<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-rfc2518bis-latest.html#changes.compared.to.rfc2518bis>).

Also, it *is* a result of working group discussion, in that it proposes 
resolutions to issues that the WG has brought up. No, it doesn't 
necessarily reflect *consensus*, but nor does the WG draft, I'd say.

> time line to finish its work eighteen months ago.  The last three months of

And you were right in doing so, as the WG had been making no noticeable 
progress for a very long time before; a fact that I complained about 
often enough.

Unfortunately, the first three months of that period were lost as well, 
and that's a shame (see for instance 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2005JulSep/0027.html>). 
To make things worse, after the WG last call eleven months ago most 
issues that were raised have been left unfixed, although resolutions for 
many of them were made.

> two months would resolve things is, bluntly, completely contrary to the

You are right, but just in the case as the WG continues to work the way 
it did before.

> the problem completely or meet its original goal (to get to Draft Standard).

Well, it's IMHO a bad idea to push out a document with known *bugs*, in 
particular if it's easy to fix them. I will start an errata list right 
away (just like I did for RFC3648/3744), but the *right* thing to do 
would be not to publish the document knowing about these problems.

> That doesn't preclude there ever being a 2518ter or a Draft Standard here.

I care a lot about a specification that is correct, and a bit less about 
it's status in the standards ladder. So it seems to me that work on a 
revision will have to start right away, no matter whether there's an 
IETF WG or not.

> that has been done and setting the stage for eventual further work.

I would agree if the current document wasn't fixable. But it is.

Best regards, Julian