[IAEP] Library Activity

[Benjamin M. Schwartz]

Eben Eliason wrote:
> Something we have talked about in the past is a way for individuals to
> share content they've created with others, and an obvious means of
> accomplishing this task is to provide functionality of a "View Alice's
> Journal" nature, by which Bob could view Alice's shared content. One
> exciting approach to implementation is to publish this content as an
> RSS feed, thus allowing anyone (including non-sugar users) with the
> right URL to take advantage of it. 

My favorite publishing standard for this purpose is WebDAV[1].  WebDAV is
essentially a lightly specialized form of HTTP, designed specifically for
the purpose of allowing users to share files.  It's supported directly by
Gnome[2][3], KDE[4], Windows (since Win98!)[5], and Mac OS X[6].  Since
it's little more than a plain HTTP server, it's also accessible to anyone
with a browser, if they have the right URL.

WebDAV is also potentially much more capable than plain HTTP.  DAV stands
for Distributed Authoring and Versioning.  WebDAV can be configured as a
true Read+Write protocol, and it can even expose the Journal's versioning
correctly.  There is also an IETF standard for searching a WebDAV
share.[7]  WebDAV includes per-file metadata, so tagging, and searching
based on those tags, is supported.

I do not see a need for RSS, if the user can publish files through WebDAV.
 However, because WebDAV is built around HTTP, such an RSS feed could be
created just as with a basic HTTP server.

--Ben

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebDAV
[2] http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-user-share/2.26/gnome-user-share.html
[3] http://www.webdavsystem.com/server/access/gnome_nautilus
[4] http://manual.intl.indoglobal.com/apbs02.html
[5] http://www.hss.caltech.edu/help/web/webdav/accessing/windowsxp
[6]
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Performance/Conceptual/FileSystem/Articles/MacOSXAndFiles.html
[7] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5323

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