Proposed LIDS Working Group

[Tim Howes <[e-mail]>]

Hi all, sorry for the cross-posting.

At the last IETF the OSI-DS working group was disbanded, and as part of
the effort to reorganize the white pages/directory service efforts that
are happening, Erik asked me to write up a proposal for a new working
group that would be a home for many of these efforts.  My first cut
at this charter is appended.  The group is meant to attack the white
pages/directory service problem from the perspective set forth in the
recent "White Pages Meeting Report", RFC 1588.

Now, I'm asking for your feedback.  I will incorporate any changes I
receive before Monday, March 14.  Then I will submit the charter to
Erik and John, our applications area co-directors.  In particular, I'd
like some input on milestones.  But anything is fair game at this
point, so don't hold back!

The charter will also likely undego modification based on the outcome
of the WPS BOF at the upcoming IETF.                       -- Tim


Lightweight Internet Directory Services Charter

There is a clear need to provide and deploy a well managed Directory Service
for the Internet. Especially a so called White Pages Directory Service is
long overdue. Due to the very nature of such a service it needs to be based
on a distributed database approach. 

Currently there are various protocols under development in the Internet that
aim at providing such a service: internet X.500, WHOIS++, NETFIND, CSO etc. 
To allow these services to evolve to a ubiquitous Internet Directory Service
a hybrid system that allows interaction between the various different
services is a requirement.  

The LIDS working group will identify the need for, define, evolve, and
standardize lightweight protocols, algorithms and accesss methods for
directory services on the Internet. Similar or related work items
already completed or underway in this area by other groups include the
Lightweight Directory Access Protocols (LDAP and Connectionless LDAP),
the User Friendly Naming (UFN) and User Friendly Searching (UFS)
specifications (all developed for internet X.500), much of the
World-Wide-Web-based efforts, including the Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) and URL/URI work, the SOLO directory access and searching
system, the WHOIS++ directory service work, and the NETFIND directory
service.  The group is intended to focus on harmonizing, evolving and
developing lightweight protocols and algorithms from all areas of
directory service, both ad hoc and standards-based, and it is expected
that this will ultimately contribute to a hybrid system that ties
together various forms of Directory Service.

Milestones

	SOLO Internet Draft published

	SOLO Internet Draft elevated to Proposed Internet 
	Standard status

	CLDAP Internet Draft elevated to Proposed Internet 
	Standard status

	X.500 URL draft published

	LDAP URL draft published

	SOLO URL draft published

	Stand-alone LDAP draft published (LDAP without X.500)