WebDAV Requirements Document
Version History

The WebDAV requirements document describes, at a high level, the functionality required to perform distributed authoring and versioning on the World Wide Web. This document constrains the WebDAV protocol specification, and is derived in part by the scenarios contained in the WebDAV scenarios document. The document is a deliverable item of the IETF WEBDAV Working Group.

This document initially began as two separate requirements documents, one for distributed authoring requirements, and one for distributed versioning requirements, which were developed in July-August, 1996. Jim Whitehead, U.C. Irvine, was the initial editor of the distributed authoring requirements. David Fiander, MKS, took an initial cut at a versioning requirements document, and this task was later carried forward by David Durand, Boston University, and Fabio Vitali, Univ. of Bolonga, who became co-editors of the distributed versioning requirements.

In late January, 1997, Judith Slein, Xerox, became editor of a combined distributed authoring and versioning requirements document (announced February 3, 1997), and, working with Fabio Vitali, merged and tightened the two documents.

Drafts in Chronological Order

High Level Capabilities Jim Whitehead
June 6, 1996
An early posting giving a small set of necessary high-level versioning capabilities.

Functional Requirements for Specifying Document Revision Information in HTTP URLs
David Fiander
June 9, 1996
This was submitted as HTML to the mailing list, and some parts of the HTML document do not show up in the browser window. View the source for the complete document.

Functional Requirements and Framework for Versioning on the WWW
David Durand, Fabio Vitali
After having a meeting at David's house, David and Fabio produced this versioning requirements draft, July 1, 1996

Requirements on HTTP for Distributed Editing
Jim Whitehead, U.C. Irvine
Rev. 0.1, August 29, 1996
This was the first distributed authoring requirements draft.

Requirements on HTTP for Distributed Content Editing
Jim Whitehead
Rev. 0.2, September 3, 1996

Requirements on HTTP for Distributed Content Editing
Jim Whitehead
Rev. 0.3, September 10, 1996
This document was submitted as an Internet Draft, <draft-whitehead-http-distreq-00.txt>

Functional Requirements and Framework for Versioning on the World Wide Web [HTML]
David G. Durand, Fabio Vitali
This is the second revision of this document, September 12, 1996

Requirements on HTTP for Distributed Content Editing [HTML]
Jim Whitehead
Rev. 0.4, September 27, 1996
This document was not released as an Internet-Draft.

Functional Requirements and Framework for Versioning on the WWW
David Durand, Fabio Vitali
This is the third revision of this document, November 6, 1996.
This document was submitted as an Internet-Draft, but missed the submission deadline for the San Jose IETF meeting, and was never resubmitted.

Requirements on HTTP for Distributed Authoring and Versioning [HTML] [Text]
Judith Slein, Jim Whitehead, David Durand, Fabio Vitali
Initial draft revision, February 10, 1997.
The first combined distributed authoring and versioning requirements document, submitted for review to the discussion list.

Requirements for Distributed Authoring and Versioning on the World Wide Web
Judith Slein, Jim Whitehead, David Durand, Fabio Vitali
Second draft, February 23, 1997
This draft is the second revision of the combined distributed authoring and versioning draft, with a change in title, submitted to the list for review.

Requirements for Distributed Authoring and Versioning on the World Wide Web [Text] [Annoucement]
Judith Slein, Fabio Vitali, Jim Whitehead, David Durand
Third draft, February 26, 1997
This draft was submitted as Internet-Draft, <draft-slein-www-dist-author-00.txt>

Requirements for Distributed Authoring and Versioning on the World Wide Web [Text]
Judith Slein, Fabio Vitali, Jim Whitehead, David Durand
Fourth draft, May 30, 1997
This draft was submitted as Internet-Draft, <draft-ietf-webdav-requirements-00.txt>.

Requirements for Distributed Authoring and Versioning on the World Wide Web [Text]
Judith Slein, Fabio Vitali, Jim Whitehead, David Durand
Fifth draft, July 28, 1997
This draft was submitted as Internet-Draft, <draft-ietf-webdav-requirements-01.txt>.

Requirements for Distributed Authoring and Versioning on the World Wide Web [Text]
Judith Slein, Fabio Vitali, Jim Whitehead, David Durand
Sixth draft, August 29, 1997
This draft was submitted as Internet-Draft, <draft-ietf-webdav-requirements-02.txt>.

Requirements for a Distributed Authoring and Versioning Protocol for the World Wide Web [Text]
Judith Slein, Fabio Vitali, Jim Whitehead, David Durand
Seventh draft, September 24, 1997
This draft was submitted as Internet-Draft, <draft-ietf-webdav-requirements-03.txt>.

Requirements for a Distributed Authoring and Versioning Protocol for the World Wide Web
Judith Slein, Fabio Vitali, Jim Whitehead, David Durand
Request for Comments #2291 (RFC 2291). February 1998.

This work item is now complete.

[WEBDAV WG Home Page]

Last modified: Fri Mar 26 1999