Subject: RE: WebDAV Working Group Meeting

From: "Yaron Goland (Exchange)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 18:11:15 -0700

General comment: Why do we need a meeting for this? This sounds like great
material for an e-mail list and it will have the extra added benefit of
allowing everyone to participate. I don't know about you folks but NC is
REALLY far away from where I am.

> 1. Discuss creating a WebDAV support organization ("webdav.org")

But, it already exists. http://webdav.org

> 2. Discuss the future of the WebDAV effort
> 
> With the WG closing soon, we should determine if is a need to 
> create a new WG
> (DAVEXT, say) for known extensions (access control, schemas, 
> etc.). What work
> items should be addressed by this new WG?

Individual submissions sound fine to me. No need to clutter up the IETF with
a whole bunch of WGs for every effort under the sun. If an effort gets big
enough then it can go for WG status.
 
> 3. Organizing an interoperability event

Why? I know bake offs are popular but WebDAV seems to have been having a
continual back off for months now just by having folks put their
implementations on the net. Unless I have seriously missed something it
seems to work damn well.

> 4. Moving RFC 2518 to Draft Standard

Personally, I would like to see this held off for at least a year. I think
it was a huge mistake for HTTP/1.1 to push to draft status long before there
was any real experience with the protocol. Except for a few propeller head
implementations there wasn't a single full featured commercial HTTP/1.1
client or proxy implementation available when HTTP/1.1 started going to
draft status. The end result is that RFC 2616 added very little value and a
lot of confusion. I think we should take this as a model of what not to do.
Instead we should wait until a number of implementations, both on the client
and server side, are widely deployed and we get some real world experience.
That has not happened yet, not even close.
 
> 5. Final review on the Advanced Collections specifications

The only relevant review of the AC draft is, of course, on the e-mail list
but I can certainly appreciate why you would want to do this at a meeting.
However I think we have enough time at the IETF for this.

> 6. Discuss/review/work on the Access Control specification

Indeed, this has been a real problem. I am going to get out a new version of
the ACL draft which I think basically has it right, it just needs some clean
up. Comments are always welcome. If anyone has the meeting notes for the
Florida ACL chat please put up a link, I think the discussion was extremely
informative as to why there hasn't been a lot of progress on ACLs.

> 7. Review/work on DASL (DAV Searching and Locating)

Huh? Isn't that why we have a DASL WG?
 
> 8. Discussion/review/work on the Delta-V protocol

How about we first get a charter. But, that having been said, a meeting on
Delta-V would obviously be very useful.

> 
> IBM is considering hosting this meeting at our Research 
> Triangle Park facility
> in RTP NC during the week of October 25. 

Sigh... I wish we could do this after the IETF. The week of Oct 20th is
pretty bad for me. But of course, that is just me.

> We would like some 
> feedback to see if
> there is sufficient interest, additional agenda items, and an 
> indication of how
> may working group members would be interested in attending. 
> If there is
> sufficient interest and attendance, we will petition the area 
> directors for
> permission to schedule the meeting. Thank you for you 
> continued interest in
> WebDAV.

ADs do not give permission to schedule meetings outside the IETF. Why would
they? The only place you can do anything "on the record" is on the e-mail
list. The IETF meetings are just a convenience to help the mailing lists
better function and meetings outside of the IETF meetings are completely
outside the purview of the IETF. The only time the IETF gets involved with
meetings held completely outside the IETF process is if those meetings start
being where real work is done to the detriment of the mailing list. In that
case the ADs will step in. A classic example of what not to do would be the
IPP effort.

Either way, unless Keith has changed his mind, as of the end of this month
WebDAV is closed. There is no more WebDAV, there are no more meetings. That
doesn't mean you shouldn't have meetings on ACLs and on Delta-V. In fact, by
the next IETF Delta-V should be a WG (Keith?). I know we have had ACL
meetings but I don't know if we ever had a BOF.

> 
> Sent by Jim Amsden and Jim Whitehead
> 

			Send by Yaron

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Sep 1999 21:23:50 -0400

> In fact, by
> the next IETF Delta-V should be a WG (Keith?).

chances are good.  the charter is currently being discussed by iesg and iab.

Keith

---

From: "Jeffrey A. Stuart" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 16:53:06 -0400

As the WG for WebDAV is going to be closed soon, will this list still exist to
discuss the Delta-V work and other extensions of DAV?  While I am only a
lurker right now, I do have an interest in WebDAV, Delta-V work and other
extensions of WebDAV.  I hope to soon be implementing a package based on
WebDAV and am very interested in following the protocol as it moves closer to
a standard.
If not, are there any plans to create a new mailing list for Delta-V and the
other extensions of WebDAV?

--
Jeff Stuart
[email-masked]
PGP Key ID: 0xE8A76C8A             Get it from certserver.pgp.com.
PGP Fingerprint: FBB0 CE1F D159 116A 34CA  77FB 6CCB 04A4 E8A7 6C8A

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On
Behalf Of Keith Moore
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 1999 9:24 PM
To: Yaron Goland (Exchange)
Cc: [email-masked]'; [email-masked]; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Subject: Re: WebDAV Working Group Meeting

Keith

---

From: Jim Whitehead <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 11:29:46 -0700

Well, I was off-net for several weeks when this first came up, and am only
now at the point where I can give it some attention. *sigh*

> REALLY far away from where I am.

Well, Yaron's comment is well-taken: these issues can all be discussed on
the mailing list.  So, in the next few messages, I'll be starting threads on
several of these issues -- I look forward to list discussion on them.

- Jim

---

From: Jim Whitehead <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 1999 12:01:30 -0700

One of the items I'd like to discuss is creating a "WebDAV support
organization".  What do I mean by this?

From Yaron's comments...

> But, it already exists. http://webdav.org

...it's clear the name itself is insufficient to convey what I have in mind.

The early life of a standard has two main phases, development and adoption.
In the IETF, working groups are where development occurs, and the IETF
culture typically results in high-quality standards being produced.
However, the IETF is typically not involved in the myriad activities that
help a standard become adopted.  The IETF doesn't do press releases, talk
with analysts, rarely does end-user education, doesn't arrange for demos at
trade shows, etc., yet these are all extremely important for the adoption of
a standard.  In fact, just doing one, without doing the other can cripple a
standard.  To paraphrase the old philosophical question, what sound does an
interoperability standard make if noone is around to hear it?

The purpose of the WebDAV support organization is to build on what Greg
Stein has already done with the webdav.org site, and in fact my choice for a
name for this organization would be "webdav.org".  But, while webdav.org is
a passive web site, waiting for people to come to it, I envision the
webdav.org organization being more active, performing activities such as
(and I list them to give you a sense of what I have in mind, not to be
particularly normative about what is/isn't involved -- there's lots more
that could be done here):

 - developing a WebDAV brand, with all this entails
   - developing a logo/icon/badge organizations/products could use
   - what the brand means, what it projects to people
 - develop a more constant press presence
   - quarterly (or more frequent) releases on DAV status
   - announcements of major specifications being completed
   - organize appearances at trade shows
 - end user education
   - what is WebDAV, how do I use it?
 - developer education
   - what is WebDAV, why should I include it in my next product?
   - what webdav.org does today -- act as a repository for specs.,
information, projects
 - develop T-shirts, other giveaways

It's important to note that webdav.org would not be a standards development
organization -- this is work the IETF does.  The support organization would,
instead, work to bridge the gap between the working group, and the various
developer communities that could use WebDAV and put it in their software,
and the broad user community where people have a need for collaborative
authoring, but don't know that DAV tools are available to do this.

I tihnk creating a WebDAV support organization would be a big plus for the
various organizations which have adopted WebDAV so far.  By pooling efforts
to inform and educate people about WebDAV, they increase the value of their
DAV investment, and increase the value of their individual product-specific
efforts.  Marketing the standard and marketing an individual DAV-supporting
product are complementary activities.

The way I see it, there is a clear need for a WebDAV support organization.
But, it's not clear to me how it will happen, and get funded.
Unfortunately, I personally don't have the time to push this forward; I need
to focus on my studies and graduate (after 7+ years it's time :-)  So, what
this effort needs is someone to pick it up as their own, and champion it.

So, I'm interested in your thoughts.  Do you feel there is a need for a
support organization?  If there was one, would you support it?  Most
importantly, is there anyone out there who feels they could help organize
such a thing?  You wouldn't have to do everything -- the press activities
should be performed by a PR firm, and I know of one that is very interested
in this activity.  But, someone needs to focus the goals, and sell it to
companies to get initial funding to support the press and educational
activities.

All right, enough from me.  Your turn.

- Jim