Internet Info 1997 December/Internet_Info_CD-ROM_Walnut_Creek_December_1997.iso/ietf/oda/oda-minutes-91nov.txt

Text File | 1993-02-17 | 7KB | 179 lines

CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_



Reported by Peter Kirstein/UCL

Minutes of the Office Document Architecture (ODA)

Description of Working Group:

The ODA Working Group will develop guidelines for the use of the Office
Document Architecture for the exchange of Compound documents including
formattable text, bit-map graphics and geometric graphics according to
the ODA Standard.  It will consider also Intercept Standards for other
document content types it considers vital - e.g.  Spreadsheets.  The
Working Group will define how to use both SMTP and X.400 for interchange
of ODA documents.  It will maintain close liaison with the SMTPEXT and
osix400 Working Groups.

This Working Group will review the availability of ODA implementations,
in order to mount a Pilot Test-bed for processable compound document
interchange.  Finally, it will set up and evaluate such a Test-bed.

Goals and Milestones:

Mar 1991 Inaugural meeting.  Jul 1991 Produce a paper stating what ODA
standards or profiles still need completing.  Jul 1991 Produce paper on
how both SMTP and X.400 message systems should be supported.  Nov 1991
Produce paper on what pilot implementations can be provided.  Dec 1991
Produce paper on what scale and type of Pilot Test-bed should be
organized.  Mar 1992 Provide first feedback on the ODA Pilot.  Ongoing
Coordinate ODA Pilot.  Ongoing Review and propose additional
enhancements of ODA.

Current Status of Implementations

As a background for the discussions on Pilots, the current status of
implementations was reviewed.  A document on the current status had been
circulated prior to the meeting; is is called ``The ODA Document
Cnvertors'' [ODC. This document reviewed the status of three of the
available packages:


  PROVIDER           PACKAGE
  BBN/UCL            SLATE/ODA
  Bull               WORD for WINDOWS/ODA
  DEC                DECWRITE/ODA



Each of the three are now available for immediate use, and the suppliers
have agree to make three copies of each available to individual
organizations participating in the IETF-ODA Pilots.  The status of each
is discussed below:

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BBN/UCL-SLATE/ODA

There has been a Release of v1.2 of the BBN SLATE/UCL ODA software; it
converts between SLATE v1.2 and ODA/ODIF Q112.  The software is made
available currently on SPARCstations, but is believed to be easily
portable to IBM RISC 6000 machines and DEC Ultrix workstations.  There
is documentation for the system on the normal ietf-osi-oda infoserver.
At present the system operates with the UCL PP message (v5.x or later
versions), and thus can operate over SMTP (with UUencode) or X.400;
later versions will work with the extensions to SMTP proposed in the
XSMTP IETF Working party.  It is possible to interoperate with any other
SMTP mail systems which does UUencoding.

It has been agreed with BBN, that they will provide for the IETF Pilot
250 copies of SLATE v1.2, and will maintain it with later releases.  It
is restricted to ``academic and research institutes only''; others must
purchase the SLATE from BBN. The software will be updated as later
releases of SLATE become available.  The whole documentation will be
provided by UCL - who will include the BBN SLATE documentation.  The BBN
portion of the software will be provided to US participants by a
``Shrink-wrapped Licence''; non-US sites will have to sign a BBN license
supplied by UCL. In both cases, UCL will keep a register of copies
supplied, and must furnish that to BBN. UCL will make a small handling
charge for the distribution.  Details of the license agreements are
given in [ODC].

BULL-WORD FOR WINDOWS/ODA

This software is also available to the Working Group; it will run on a
DOS PC, and must be integrated by the using site with a mail system.
The Bull software is designed for conversion between RTF and ODA Q112,
but they use it only with WORD for WINDOWS.

The software requires a PC/AT with PC-DOS or MS-DOS v 3.10 or above with
at least 1 MB of EMS, hard disc and floppy.  It requires also MS-WINDOWS
v3.0, WORD for Windows v1 or other editor supporting RTF, and font
scaling for a CRT such as ATM Adobe.  The programs include Q112 <--> RTF
convertors, a formatter, filter, and a browser.  It also includes
filters and test documents.  There is appropriate documentation from
Bull.

The licence agreement specifies the use of up to three copies of the
software on DOS systems; the usage of the softwre is restricted to R and
D purposes.  The licensees should provide a report on the usage.  The
intention is to provide the software to Universities and Public Research
laboratories for evaluation, research and demonstration.  The period of
the agreement is initially until June 1992.

Bull will distribute the software and documentation, within a month of
users returning a signed license agreement to Bull.  Details of the
license agreement are given in [ODC].

DEC


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This package is regarded as a Gateway product between their CDA products
and OSI. The VMS release was made in April, the ULTRIX release is on
Extended Field Trial (EFT). They run on all current DEC machines.  Again
details of the license agreement are given in [ODC]

[ODC] describes also the limitations in current interworking between the
three implementations.

We expect that there will be available also a version of WORDPERFECT/ODA
from UPC/ICL. This software has not yet been tested fully for
compatibility, and its license arrangements are still under discussion.
We would expect to provide further information on this software at the
next IETF meeting.

Interest was keen also in MAC software, and the Chair agreed to contact
Apple since it was believed they also had software in some relevant
state.  It was agreed that in view of the imminence of so much of the
software, it was important to update this list regularly.  The Chair
would provide an updated status for the next meeting at the next IETF.

The participants in the meeting expressed an interest in having a
reasonably up-to-date directory of whom they might be able to reach by
ODA for the Pilot.  The Chair agreed to put up a list of mailboxes on an
X.500 Directory system to which all those interested had access.  He
will also keep a list of active users on the Infoserver.

THE PILOT

The document describing the implementations available was sent to the
Working Group mailing list only just before the meeting.  A number of
people have requested one or other of the implementations available, so
that there should be feedback from early use by the time of the next
IETF meeting.  Currently we expect to use UUencoded SMTP or X.400 for
document transfer.  However, in view of the excellent progress being
made in the SMTPEXT Working Group, and the alpha release availability of
a package from Marshall Rose, we expect also to be testing shortly with
that package.

NEXT MEETING

It was proposed to hold the next meeting prior at the San Diego IETF
meeting, during the week of March 16-20.

Attendees

Harald Alvestrand        [e-mail]
Cyrus Chow               [e-mail]
Peter Kirstein           [e-mail]
Jim Knowles              [e-mail]
Ursula Sinkewicz         [e-mail]
Andrew Veitch            [e-mail]



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