Re: ODA-IETF WG Minutes

[[e-mail]]

 I will be away after this week, so here are my minutes.
Office Document Architecture (ODA)

CHARTER

Chair:
	Peter Kirstein, [e-mail]

Mailing Lists:
	General Discussion:  [e-mail]
	To Subscribe:        [e-mail]
	Archive:             [e-mail]


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 MIME 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  Testbed  for processable
     compound document interchange.   Finally,  it will set up and evaluate
     such a testbed.

GOALS AND MILESTONES

Done	          Inaugural meeting.
Done           Produce paper stating current state of ODA Convertors
July 1992      Provide first feedback on the ODA Pilot.
Ongoing        Coordinate ODA Pilot.
Ongoing        Review and propose additional enhancements of ODA.


CURRENT MEETING REPORT   Reported by Peter Kirstein/UCL

There has been less progress in implementations of the newer FOD-26 version
of  the ODA Profile than  had been  hoped  by  the  time  of  this meeting.
Moreover,  while early  imlementations  may  be  available  during  the 3rd
quarter of 1993,  it is unklikely that there can be  enough  to justify any
pilot by that time.

In view of the above,  and of the very  poor attendance at  the meeting, it
was agreed to terminate the working group.  If there is sufficient interest
at a  later stage -  e.g.  the November meeting,  then working group may be
reinstated.  The current status is outlined below.


DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE

Some papers are available in an electronic form on the  UCL-CS info-server:
"[e-mail]".   The documents in the info-server are accessed
by standard message systems, giving a message body of the form:

        request:ietf-osi-oda
        topic:xxxx

where xxxx is the name of the document required.

All the documents in the info-server are  available in text form;   many of
them are stored also in ODA/ODIF format.   The list  of documents currently
in the collection is listed in a document called INDEX.

THE STATUS OF Q112 IMPLEMENTATIONS

The latest  document  defining  the current status  is  [1]  below.   It is
available  on  the  info-server.    It  gives  details  about  the  current
implementations producing Q112  ODA available  for  the  Pilot.   These are
listed below:
 
 PRODUCT                  Supplier   Status   Product  Availability Source
 SLATE/ODA  V1.2 or V2    BBN/UCL    OK       SLATE-yes  Now        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        Dev        ??       Q2 92      UPC
  
UCL started shipping  SLATE/ODA v1.2  in  February 1992;   this is based on
SLATE v1.2.    Few have tested it.   BBN brought out V2 of SLATE during  Q4
92.  From a user  viewpoint,  this  has better  graphics  and font support,
supports a   fuller  character  set,  and is easier  to configure;  the UCL
SLATE/ODA v2  supports only the same functionality as the SLATE/ODA  v1.2 -
because the extra facilities  in  the SLATE v2  are  not  supported  in the
Convertor.   The   Bull   product has not been  changed recently;   UCL has
tested it for conformity.   The DEC product is available now,  and has been
tested for conformity;   no other site had tried   a recent version of that
software.   The Apple and Xerox products were delivered to  UCL.  They have
not really  been  tested for  interoperability by UCL;   little interest in
them was expressed in the last ODA WG meeting.  The WordPerfect/ODA  system
from  University  Politechnic of  Catalonia has been  delivered recently to
UCL.   There are some   problems still which must   be ironed out - but the
software should be available by June 1993.
 
There was also interest expressed in ODA vs SGML.  UCL has produced an SGML
-->   ODA  convertor,  which works with a  specific DTD.   This can be made
available to interested parties.
 
THE STATUS OF FOD-26 IMPLEMENTATIONS
 
The Profile used in all the ODA document activities   described hitherto is
the Q112   Profile.    A  new Profile called  FOD26  has now been ratified.
The new profile   has  some  advantages,  but  that  is less important than
that a number  of  large  manufacturers  have   agreed  to  support  it for
products under ODAC (Bull,   DEC,   IBM, ICL, Siemens-Nixdorf and UNISYS as
part of  the  ODA  Consortium).    The  manufacturers  are  providing their
further  products  only   according   to  the  FOD26   version.    The ODAC
Toolkits is now available in binary form for $US 100 from the Consortium.
 
In view of the above,  there has been little  interest in working  with the
Q112  versions of the software,  and we chose not to have a  meeting in the
November IETF.  There are a number of FOD26 developments announced;   these
include the following:

 PRODUCT                  Supplier   Status   Product  Availability Source
 SLATE/ODA V2             BBN/UCL    Testing SLATE-yes  Q3 1993      UCL
 Word-for-Windows/ODA     Bull       Testing    Yes     Q3 1993      Bull
 WordPerfect              UPC        Testing    Yes     Q3 1993      UPC
 ODAC Toolkit             ICL        Available  Yes     Now          ICL
 
 
 
 REFERENCE
 
1.	S.  Bayderee et al:  The ODA Document Convertors, UCL Internal Report,
     Version 5, March 1993.