Subject: WebDAV Working Group Meeting

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 13:52:24 -0400

WebDAV Working Group Members,

We are considering a WebDAV working group meeting sometime before the November
IETF meeting to help move the spec to Draft Standard.  There are a lot of items
to cover, perhaps too much to handle effectively in the 1-2 hour meetings
available at IETF. Hopefully this meeting would provide action items, issue
resolutions, and conclusions that we could use to hit the ground running at the
November IETF. The proposed agenda is:

1. Discuss creating a WebDAV support organization ("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?

3. Organizing an interoperability event

4. Moving RFC 2518 to Draft Standard

5. Final review on the Advanced Collections specifications

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

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

8. Discussion/review/work on the Delta-V protocol

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

Sent by Jim Amsden and Jim Whitehead

---

From: "Yaron Goland (Exchange)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1999 17:35:07 -0700

WGs that live too long have a really nasty habit of taking on lives of their
own and perpetuating themselves simply to perpetuate themselves. Forcing
working groups to go through regular replenishments is a critical activity.
It allows new leadership to step up and for the WG to renew itself.

Just look at the people who are driving WebDAV today. Most of them are
fairly new to the effort and even those who have been around for a while did
not take on the leadership roles that they now occupy until recently. This
is a natural and healthy process. Forcing WGs to disband and reform under
new charters with new leadership encourages this process and keeps the IETF
functioning smoothly.

One of the reasons the IETF has formed this process is to avoid the types of
problems the ITU experiences where WGs live forever and people start to make
careers out of a particular WG. This leads to an end to progress and sucks
up valuable organizational resources that could be better applied elsewhere.
A WG is not a self contained entity. It requires constant care and
supervision from the IETF in the form of the ADs. ADs are a very limited
resource and need to be applied sparingly.

In the case of WebDAV we have no less than three vibrant efforts underway.
The first, DASL, already has its own WG. The second, Delta-V, is well on its
way to getting a WG. The third, Advanced Collections, is moving along with
its specifications.

In addition to these efforts we have other efforts underway, such as the
renewed interest in ACLs and the potential (although in my opinion misguided
;) interest in live properties.

I would strongly council against a DAVEX WG. This type of WG has been tried
before and it inevitable fails. The reason being that it turns into a grab
bag of technologies with a meandering charter that never stops growing.
Standing WGs are almost always a bad idea. Many of the drafts that people
are interested in are targeted to very well defined and fairly small
communities. These sorts of drafts can be easily explored as individuals
submissions. A WG is only necessary when you have a fairly complex draft
which requires a significant portion of the community to participate. I
don't believe these requirements apply to Advanced Collections or ACLs but I
do believe they apply to DASL and Delta-V.

As such I hope we shut down the WebDAV WG as soon as possible and let the
other efforts bloom.

		Yaron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Stein [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 1999 1:11 PM
> To: Keith Moore
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: WebDAV Working Group Meeting
> 
> 
> Keith Moore wrote:
> > 
> > > Keith, what is the status of the WebDAV working group?
> > 
> > currently, it's still active, but I expect it to be winding down.
> > The group can request a meeting if it wants, but it shouldn't
> > take on any new work.
> 
> Actually, I'm somewhat amazed as the desire to blow away this working
> group. It is still performing a lot of work with the WebDAV 
> extensions.
> If this list goes away, then what? Where does all this discussion go
> then?
> 
> I find it silly to shut something down simply because some rule
> somewhere says it needs to be shut down. Leave it open until 
> the work is
> done.
> 
> If you must shut it down, then we must have a "DAV Extensions WG" to
> take its place.
> [this is the heart of the silliness -- renaming something just to
> satisfy some rules]
> 
> Cheers,
> -g
> 
> --
> Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/
>

---

From: "Slein, Judith A" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 10:50:07 -0400

> From: Yaron Goland (Exchange) [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 1999 8:35 PM
> To: 'Greg Stein'; Keith Moore
> Subject: RE: WebDAV Working Group Meeting
> 
> 
> A WG is only necessary when you have a fairly 
> complex draft

I do think the work on Advanced Collections benefits from the support of a
working group, and would like to see the WebDAV working group continue until
the 3 advanced collections specs are through IETF-wide last call.

I also think deadlines are good, that limiting the life of working groups is
a good thing, and that we should try to wrap up the advanced collections
work as soon as possible.

--Judy

---

From: "Yaron Goland (Exchange)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 1999 10:39:33 -0700

I think there are a lot of problems with AC that aren't going to be solved
any time soon. I appreciate the desire to close down the specs quickly but
every single time any point is brought up about AC it ends up bringing up 10
other points. 

The specs are leaking and most likely require a complete re-think. A good
place to start would be an object model document. In almost every case the
AC spec's problems can be traced back to the fact that it is trying to
enable very complicated namespace/resource manipulations without having a
good model of how the namespace/resource space actually works.

Therefore if WebDAV is kept open until AC is done then WebDAV will go into
Zombie state for at least another year. I realize that a lot of people
disagree with me. I would recommend looking at the e-mail log on AC over the
last few years and judging for yourself.

As such I suggest we close down WebDAV and either bring up a new WG for AC
or let them go on their own.

		Yaron

> From: Slein, Judith A [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 09, 1999 7:50 AM
> To: 'Yaron Goland (Exchange)'; 'Greg Stein'; Keith Moore