RFC 2291 (rfc2291) - Page 1 of 21

Requirements for a Distributed Authoring and Versioning Protocol for the World Wide Web

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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
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