RFC 2291 (rfc2291) - Page 1 of 21
Requirements for a Distributed Authoring and Versioning Protocol for the World Wide Web
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group J. Slein
Request for Comments: 2291 Xerox Corporation
Category: Informational F. Vitali
University of Bologna
E. Whitehead
U.C. Irvine
D. Durand
Boston University
February 1998
Requirements for a Distributed Authoring and Versioning
Protocol for the World Wide Web
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1998). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
Current World Wide Web (WWW or Web) standards provide simple support
for applications which allow remote editing of typed data. In
practice, the existing capabilities of the WWW have proven inadequate
to support efficient, scalable remote editing free of overwriting
conflicts. This document presents a list of features in the form of
requirements for a Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol
which, if implemented, would improve the efficiency of common remote
editing operations, provide a locking mechanism to prevent overwrite
conflicts, improve link management support between non-HTML data
types, provide a simple attribute-value metadata facility, provide
for the creation and reading of container data types, and integrate
versioning into the WWW.
1. Introduction
This document describes functionality which, if incorporated in an
extension to the existing HTTP proposed standard [HTTP], would allow
tools for remote loading, editing and saving (publishing) of various
media types on the WWW to interoperate with any compliant Web server.
As much as possible, this functionality is described without
suggesting a proposed implementation, since there are many ways to
perform the functionality within the WWW framework. It is also
Slein, et. al. Informational