Fwd: New Version Notification for draft-toomim-httpbis-versions-00.txt

[Michael Toomim <[e-mail]>]

Hi everyone in HTTP!

Last fall we solicited feedback on the Braid State Synchronization 
proposal [draft 
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-toomim-httpbis-braid-http-04>, 
slides 
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/118/materials/slides-118-httpbis-braid-http-add-synchronization-to-http-00>], 
which I'd summarize as:

    "We're enthusiastic about the general work, but the proposal is too
    high-level. Break the spec up into multiple independent specs, and
    work bottom-up. Focus on concrete 'bits-on-the-wire'."

So I'm breaking the spec up, and have drafted up the first chunk for 
you. I would very much like your review on:

    *Versioning of HTTP Resources*
    draft-toomim-httpbis-versions
    https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-toomim-httpbis-versions-00

Versioning is necessary for state synchronization—and occurs in a range 
of HTTP systems:

  * Caching
  * Archiving
  * Version Control
  * Collaborative Editing

Today, HTTP has resource versions in the Last-Modified and ETag headers, 
and sometimes embeds versions in URLs, like with WebDAV. Each of these 
options serves some needs, but also has specific limitations. An 
improved general approach is proposed, which provides new features, that 
could enable cool new applications, such as incrementally-updated RSS 
feeds, and could simplify existing specifications, such as resumeable 
uploads, and history compression in OT/CRDT algorithms.

I would love to know if people find this work interesting. I think we 
could improve performance, interoperability, and be one step closer to 
having Google Docs power within HTTP URLs.

Michael

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	New Version Notification for draft-toomim-httpbis-versions-00.txt
Date: 	Mon, 08 Jul 2024 11:02:11 -0700
From: 	[e-mail]
To: 	Michael Toomim <[e-mail]>



A new version of Internet-Draft draft-toomim-httpbis-versions-00.txt has 
been
successfully submitted by Michael Toomim and posted to the
IETF repository.

Name: draft-toomim-httpbis-versions
Revision: 00
Title: HTTP Resource Versioning
Date: 2024-07-08
Group: Individual Submission
Pages: 19
URL: https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-toomim-httpbis-versions-00.txt
Status: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-toomim-httpbis-versions/
HTMLized: 
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-toomim-httpbis-versions


Abstract:

HTTP resources change over time. Each change to a resource creates a
new "version" of its state. HTTP systems often need a way to
identify, read, write, navigate, and/or merge these versions, in
order to implement cache consistency, create history archives, settle
race conditions, request incremental updates to resources, interpret
incremental updates to versions, or implement distributed
collaborative editing algorithms.

This document analyzes existing methods of versioning in HTTP,
highlights limitations, and sketches a more general versioning
approach that can enable new use-cases for HTTP.



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