[IAEP] Library Activity

[Lucian Branescu]

WebDAV is very nice at a first look, but its implementations are so
radically different, that using it across OSes is often hopeless (from
my limited experience).

2009/5/5 Benjamin M. Schwartz <bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu>:
> 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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