gvfs WebDAV: Nautilus does not use the COPY/MOVE methods

[isync]

Binary package hint: gvfs

WebDAV offers an extended set of HTTP methods, among them COPY and MOVE, which allow a user to trigger a server-side move of files or file-like objects and collections.

When a user works on a WebDAV enabled resource via Nautilus/gvfs and issues a copy or move of files and/or folder, Nautilus instead of using the COPY/MOVE methods does GETs and PUTs.

Exemplary for a simple file copy
-User triggers file copy
-Nautilus downloads the file via GET
-Nautilus uploads the file via PUT
-File is copied

This behavior is undesirable as files and/or collections might be huge in terms of data. Probably Gigabytes which are then transferred over the network down- and upstream instead of a sub-second operation when done server-side. Further, with this behavior a server is not able to decide whether metadata such as timestamps, permission etc. (on files) should be preserved or not but is tricked into destroying these attributes.

A nice side-effect of this is that Nautilus is able to show a "sort-of" progress bar.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.