Drop WebDAV support

[ChristianGruen]

With BaseX 12, WebDAV support will be dropped. It seems to be rarely used, and the applied Milton Webdav cannot be updated without considerable efforts and without losing features.

[dizzzz]

I was not aware you were using the same library. It has been a pain for a long time (exist used the old version), the most recent version is close to use-less due to missing features. apache jackrabbit might give a new route, though the focus is different

[ChristianGruen]

Thanks for letting us know.

I think we will gather some more feedback on how much WebDAV is still used, and possibly provide and support it separately as part of our commercial services (for clients who cannot go without it).

Some time ago, we wanted to realize a WebDAV client written in XQuery. I think it would be possible, but take considerable time.

[dizzzz]

Your ticket triggered me to think of removing it from eXist-db as well;

Rewrite in xquery... pooh, I think that would open a can of worms; soo many clients/agents so many interpretations of what the spec is. NULL locks for example. Locking in general. And I have a doubt on how much is it used. Though in eXist-db it is sometimes reported to be used as the 'document insert' has nill issues where other routes have sometimes some issues - cant reproduce.

In the past I had frequently contact with Brad, the original author. It is a pity he sold -off the code to the current company. But I can imagine, as his code was soo good that big companies (really big) just used it for business critical apps (millions of users) with no thank you or compensation.

Jack rabbit could be an option, but I guess we need a sponsor for this.

[ChristianGruen]

I have a doubt on how much is it used. Though in eXist-db it is sometimes reported to be used as the 'document insert' has nill issues where other routes have sometimes some issues

True – bugs are often a good way to find out if open-source features are used ;) Another one is to remove them and see what happens.

I also agree that the variety of WebDAV clients makes it difficult to write down a clean implementation, no matter which language is used. I don’t believe we would tackle that any time soon, and if we did so, we could only guarantee that it works with specific clients.

[dizzzz]

I recognize that fully.