Agenda and paper for the OSI-ODA meeting at the Boston IETF

P.Kirstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk Sat, 11 July 1992 16:45 UTC

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cc: P.Kirstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Subject: Agenda and paper for the OSI-ODA meeting at the Boston IETF
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1992 17:27:11 +0100
From: P.Kirstein@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Message-ID: <9207111247.aa10621@NRI.Reston.VA.US>

 The fifth Meeting of the ODA Working Group,  in the OSI Area,  will be held
 under  the auspices  of  the Internet  Engineering Task Force  at the Hyatt
 Regency  Hotel,  Cambridge,  on  Wednesday  July  16  from  9.00-12.00.   A
 preliminary Agenda for that meeting is given below.   A  progress report by
 the Chair is appended.
 
 PROPOSED AGENDA
 
 1.	Introduction of Participants
 
 2.	Review of Documentation available
 
 3.	Review of progress on IETF-ODA Pilots
 
 4.	Consideration of  current status  of  standardisation -  the impact of
      FOD-26 and of extensions.
 
 5.	Review of the status of possible products
 
 6.	Use of MIME
 
 7.	The interest in security services
 
 8.	Review of possible programme and timetable
 
 10.	Proposed further actions
 
 12.	Arrangements for future Meetings

RECENT PROGRESS

           PROGRESS ON ODA CONVERTORS AS REPORTED BY P.T.KIRSTEIN
                 TO THE IETF MEETING, BOSTON, JULY 10,1992
                                      
The  latest  document  defining  the current status  is  [1] below.   It is
available  on  the  info-server.    It  gives  details  about  the  current
implementations available for the Pilot.  These are listed below:

PRODUCT                  Supplier   Status      Product  Available   Source
SLATE/ODA  V1.2          BBN/UCL    OK          Slate-yes   Now      UCL
SLATE/ODA  V2            BBN/UCL    Development Slate-Beta  Q4 1992  UCL
Word-for-Windows/ODA v3  Bull       OK          Yes         Now      Bull
DECWRITE/ODA             DEC        OK          Yes         Now      DEC
Global View              Xerox      Testing     Yes         Now      Xerox
MacODA                   Apple      Testing     Beta        ??       Apple
WordPerfect              UPC        Development Future      Q4 1992  UPC?

	TABLE 1.  The Known availability of ODA implementationa, 7/92

     (Note in the above the Column "testing" denotes that UCL is still
     testing interoperability with other  implementations.  After such
     testing, they  discuss the results with the supplier)

UCL has continued shipping SLATE/ODA v1.2.  BBN has sent UCL a beta release
of V2  of SLATE;  UCL now expects SLATE/ODA v2 to be ready for shipping ODA
attached to that version  only during Q4  1992.   The Bull product has been
released for shipping;   UCL has tested it for conformity.  The DEC product
is available now,  and has been tested for conformity.  The Xerox and Apple
products,  have been delivered to UCL;  all are available commercially, but
are still being tested for interoperability by UCL.   

At  the last  meeting,  the  Chair  stated  that  it  was  unlikely  that a
WORDPERFECT/ODA  system  from  University  Politechnic  of  Catalonia would
become  available.   This situation has  changed.   A  new  version  of the
previous  system  has been sent to  UCL;   it has had many  of its problems
resolved.   However,  that version includes some software from  ICL - which
UPC had not had permission  to release  for the Pilot.   UPC has reiterated
that it  expects to ship to UCL some software based entirely on their work;
UCL expects to receive it in September.  Thus UCL expect it should be ready
for release to the IETF during the fourth quarter of 1992.

Following the last  meeting,  the Chair has initiated a  discussion  on the
question of National character  sets with Bull  -  who plan to provide such
support  in  a later version;   information  on  this  point  is  still not
available to UCL on the Apple, DEC or Xerox implementations.

So far,  most use of the systems were using X.400  for transport.  Interest
has been expressed in working with the Multi-media Mail format (MIME);  UCL
is developing  a MIME  channel for PP,  which  should  be  available by the
beginning of Q4 1992.  The channel can send any binary data, so that it can
send  ODA messages,  which  are a recognised  Content Type in MIME.

A version of securing complete ODA documents  has been prepared by  UCL for
work with SLATE.   Beta test versions of this system, which requires OSISEC
and SLATE v1.2,  should be available by the beginning of Q4  1992.  UCL has
not decided whether that version should be released more widely, or whether
only a version based on SLATE v2  should be prepared first.  There are some
differences in  concept between OSISEC  and the  Internet  Privacy Enhanced
Mail  (PEM);   though  differences  in  certificate  structures  are  being
resolved.   The differences may lead to some strategic decisions on whether
the group would wish to Pilot the secured ODA.

Reference

1.  D. Sadok et al:  The ODA Document Convertors, UCL Internal Report No 2,
	 Version 4, July 1992.