RE: [Megaco] Megaco: which spec to use?

Let's hope you haven't opened up a Pandora's box here!

Anyway, I'll start with the ITU-T side.  The basic agreement is that the
ITU-T actually owns the standard, with IETF concurrence.  Hence conformance
should be judged against the H.248 series.  Scott Bradner, jump in here if
I've stated this wrongly.

The renumbering to H.248.1, etc. occurred when the ITU-T brought out version
2.  They realized that the version of the main protocol doesn't generally
(not at all, so far) change the validity of the packages, which were being
documented as annexes of H.248.  Rather than having to republish all the
package annexes each time the main specification acquired a new version,
they decided to make them individual recommendations.  Hence H.248.1 is the
main specification and H.248.x beyond that correspond to the old annexes.
Some more have been added since that move was taken.

Sorting out the ITU-T versions requires considerable care.  The distinction
is made on the basis of date of final approval.  Fortunately, because the
ITU-T "last call" process for v2 dragged out a bit, "v1 corrected" has a
different date (03/2002) from v2 (05/2002).  From the ITU-T point of view
the latest version obsoletes all previous ones, so that is what their web
site shows.

The other point to consider is the ITU-T "Implementor's Guide" tradition.
The Implementor's Guide accumulates known errors and corrections to the
latest version of the standard.  So when you state conformance, it should be
to a specific version of the standard, plus a specific version of the
Implementor's Guide.  I'm afraid I don't know what most people have deployed
-- perhaps others would comment, privately to me if they would like, and I
can compile the answers.  The current Implementor's Guide is always
available at no charge at the Study Group 16 web site (starting point 
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/com16/index.html).

Turning to the IETF side: the IESG has approved
draft-ietf-megaco-3015corr-02.txt as an RFC, obsoleting RFC 3015.  I'm not
sure I passed this news on to the list!  Pardon me for my oversight.
Anyway, typically it will take a few months for this document to pass
through the RFC Editor's queue and be assigned an RFC number.

I will recycle version 2, fixing the missing initial characters and draft
date, then pass it to the IESG for approval.  My intention is that this will
update but not obsolete the 3015corr RFC, but I just realized that I should
put that question to the list.  Do people want two versions of Megaco to
coexist, or do they want to follow the ITU-T viewpoint and allow v2 to
obsolete v1?

-----Original Message-----
From: Pascal Lambers [mailto:pascal.lambers@pandora.be] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2002 9:07 PM
To: Megaco@ietf.org
Subject: [Megaco] Megaco: which spec to use?

Hello, 

May I ask some questions about which Megaco spec to hold on to...

For Megaco, Ietf has different documents:
Gateway Control Protocol Version 1: RFC 3015
(http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3015.txt?number=3015) 
draft-ietf-megaco-3015corr-01.txt 
draft-ietf-megaco-3015corr-02.txt
(http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-megaco-3015corr-02.txt)
As there is no RFC for version 2 yet, the only norm is version 1. Vendors
who implemented specifcic corrections and amendements specified in the
corrective documents are in fact not conform to the official Megaco spec, as
"it is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite
them other than as work in progress." Is this interpretation correct?

Now, my second question: what about ITU-T's H.248 specifications? I
understand that RFC 3015 corresponds to H.248. But what about H.248.1,
H.248.2, etc. Are they official or just corrections and ideas for a new
official spec yet to come?

Is any vendor relying on this spec, or does everybody take the RFC 3015?

Thanks in advance,
Pascal
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