Subject: Re: Thoughts on relation to WebDAV

From: Werner Baumann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 00:04:14 +0200

Helge wrote:
 > BTW: I do not even agree that it is invalid to return 501 in response
 > to MKCOL. For me a requirement to support MKCOL just means that the
 > server knows what implementing MKCOL implies according to WebDAV,
 > that it expects to receive a MKCOL request and can then respond with
 > any valid HTTP code (given that WebDAV is a strict HTTP superset).
 > But that is just how I read the combination of the specs.

So support for MKCOL means the ability to reject every MKCOL-request 
with "any valid HTTP code".
Julian is right: I live in another world.

And this is what RFC 2616 says about 501:

   10.5.2 501 Not Implemented

   The server does not support the functionality required to fulfill the
   request. This is the appropriate response when the server does not
   recognize the request method and is not capable of supporting it for
   any resource.

Werner

---

From: Helge Hess <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 01:22:31 +0200

> with "any valid HTTP code".

Well, as I said: "that is just how I read the combination of the specs".
My interpretation of "combination" in the given scenario is rooted on  
the title of RFC 2518: "HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring".
HTTP Extension means for me that the RFC _extends_ the HTTP  
specification, not that it restricts it. If a client is a WebDAV  
client, it automatically is a full HTTP/1.1 client, hence must support  
501 responses. And the other way around.

But really, this thread already went too far, points have been  
exchanged and are archived for further consideration.
In the end I'm mostly concerned with real world interoperability, and  
I think that the important question raised by Julian is still "where  
does it matter"?
(I think) To usefully continue the discussion you must transparently  
answer the question why, for a client, a readonly WebDAV collection  
returning 403 is different to a server which has an IP address  
protection for MKCOL on a collection.

Thanks,
   Helge