- From: Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>
- Date: 2003年11月10日 15:29:49 +0100
- To: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
- Message-ID: <3FAFA0DD.7090102@gmx.de>
Hi, in case people want to discuss this during the IETF meeting, here's a summary of the major open issue left with the redirect references protocol (<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-ietf-webdav-redirectref-protocol-latest.html>). There are (at least) two major design goals, but unfortunately both are in direct contradiction: #1: Maximum consistency with HTTP/1.1 (RFC2616). This means that any request that addresses a redirect reference resource MUST result in a 3xx status code (obviously the whole point is that GET MUST result in a redirection, and if it does, it's hard to say why other methods such as PUT or DELETE should behave differently). Therefore, the redirect reference protocol introduces a new request header ("Apply-To-Redirect-Ref") through which a client can indicate that the request indeed should be applied to the redirect reference resource itself. #2: Maximum usability with existing clients. For instance, the Microsoft Webfolder client will not be able to DELETE a redirect reference resource unless the server deviates from #1. Right now I'm not sure about the best way to resolve this. Currently the spec chooses #1 (back when this decision was made, there was probably the assumption that existing clients would quickly be updated -- something that probably isn't true today). However this may result in implementers either just ignoring these rules, or adding special workarounds based on "User Agent" detection. Feedback appreciated, Julian -- <green/>bytes GmbH -- http://www.greenbytes.de -- tel:+492512807760
Received on Monday, 10 November 2003 09:29:51 UTC