[Nautilus-list] Re: HTTP Libraries

[Greg Stein <gstein lyra org>]

[ sorry if you get this twice; I sent it last night, but it hasn't shown up
  in the archive or on the mailing list (yet) ]

Regarding the various HTTP libraries and their stability (or lack thereof),
I would like to repeat my earlier post and direct people to the Neon library:

    http://www.webdav.org/neon/

Neon provides a ton of functionality/features that I would guess the
existing Gnome/Nautilus libraries do not. A quick review (from the Neon web
page):

* high-level HTTP and WebDAV interfaces
* low-level HTTP interface (for implementing new HTTP methods)
* HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/1.0 persistent connections
* Basic and Digest authentication
* Proxy support (including proxy authentication)
* WebDAV resource manipulation: MOVE, COPY, DELETE, MKCOL
* WebDAV property support: set, remove, query (via PROPFIND, PROPPATCH)

Joe has also implemented SSL, but is busy with school for another couple
weeks. He'll post the updated Neon, with SSL support, at that point.

Many of the above features are not in any of the libraries, which are in use
by the Gnome projects -- using Neon would give you a huge leg up, provide an
immediately stable platform, and defray a lot of development/debug time.

Neon is LGPL'd, so it fits well into Gnome. It is also quite mature, despite
its "0.2" label. It was extracted from the "sitecopy" and "cadaver"
programs. Sitecopy is over a year and a half old. Cadaver is about six
months old.

IMO, Ian's desire to move everything to use gnome-vfs is a good one. But I'd
amend his "plan" and suggest that gnome-vfs be built atop Neon. I've looked
at the WebDAV support in gnome-vfs -- Neon would be a good addition.

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/