Subject: RE: Reason for disappearing lock-null resources

From: "Clemm, Geoff" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 10:39:49 -0400

From: Lisa Dusseault [mailto:[email-masked]]

   I think I reconstructed why lock-null resources were designed to
   disappear when their locks go away.  It's because lock-null
   resources may be created accidentally, then they may not be
   removable if the user doesn't have delete permission.

That probably is right, and it also highlights why lock-null resources
are unlikely to be implemented in multi-protocol repositories.  In
order to maintain DAV locking semantics, a multi-protocol repository
will allocate a "regular" resource as the result of applying a LOCK to
an unmapped URL.  But then at UNLOCK time, the regular resource
constraints will apply, and you may be able to unlock the resource but
not be able to delete that regular resource that was created to hold
the lock.  A secure repository is unlikely to give the WebDAV process
a hammer big enough to violate the underlying acl constraints on a
resource, and so the resource will remain undeleted, no matter what
the protocol says.  It would be preferable to make this behavior
predictable.

Cheers,
Geoff