Re: [apps-discuss] [Uri-review] Provisional URI registrations

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Wojcik" <Michael.Wojcik@microfocus.com>
To: <uri-review@ietf.org>; <apps-discuss@ietf.org>
Cc: "Alfred HÎnes" <ah@TR-Sys.de>
Sent: Tuesday, November 23, 2010 3:48 PM

> From: uri-review-bounces@ietf.org [mailto:uri-review-bounces@ietf.org]
> On Behalf Of Alfred HÎnes
> Sent: Monday, 22 November, 2010 15:35
>
> Graham Klyne wrote:
>
> > Having made a very quick review of that discussion (w.r.t. tn3270), I
> > feel there is a consensus that the appropriate response to to say
> > "that's fine, it has a definition, let's leave it there".
>
> Well, that's been one of the points where opinions seem to differ.
> I could not find a definition, only RFC 1738 "reserving the name for
> future definition".  The users of TN3270 service so far have claimed
> there would be a definition, but nobody has shown it so far, and some
> indications have been reported of different, non-interoperable
> definitions as well.  I don't want to take a position on that now.

As far as I can tell, the situation is this:

- There is no definition of the tn3270 scheme.

- There are applications which interpret tn3270 URIs, by starting a client that
implements some flavor of TN3270.

- There is no single definition of a TN3270 service, which is what the scheme
presumably refers to. There are definitions of various pieces of Classic TN3270,
definitions of "best practices" for Classic TN3270, and a definition of TN3270E.

- There are various implementations of TN3270 service (client and server), most
or all of which are probably not fully compliant with the various definitions.

<tp>
Looking at recent IBM announcements, I found one from this year announcing
support for TN3270 over IPv6, which makes it more progressive, and likely to be
around longer, than some IETF protocols.

Tom Petch
</tp>

- Those implementations are generally interoperable, but sometimes with caveats
(eg reduced functionality).

So I think it's fair to say that:

1) There is no definition of the tn3270 scheme.

2) While there's a working understanding of what specifications contribute to a
"standard" implementation of TN3270 service, there is no single definition of
that service. That makes defining the scheme more difficult.

I'd also suggest that while a single definition of the TN3270 service, and a
definition and proper registration of the tn3270 scheme, are desirable, in
practice I don't believe they'd have much effect. IBM hasn't shown any
inclination to bring its client implementation into conformance with the extant
TN3270E specification (RFC 2355), for example.

I don't have strong feelings about whether the "tn3270" scheme is labelled
"provisional" or "historic". Again, I don't think it will make any difference to
implementors, who will treat tn3270-scheme URIs however they like. (I'm an
implementor myself, but thus far I've only dealt with the server side, which
never sees such URIs, so it hasn't come up.)

--
Michael Wojcik
Principal Software Systems Developer, Micro Focus

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