Formation of the ISODE Consortium

[Steve Hardcastle-Kille <[e-mail]>]

This message contains a press release that was sent out earlier today.
I am sending this to multiple lists, and encourage its further
distribution.   

The press release announces the formation of the ISODE Consortium,
which is a new not-for-profit cooperative enterprise, whose
mission is to evolve and promote the  ISODE.  

This marks the start of a new stage in the development of the ISODE,
and I hope that you will all see this as a very positive direction.
The ISODE was primarily developed as a research platform.  Whilst it
has been successful in this role, there has also been substantial use
for provision of services and as a product base.  The ISODE Consortium
is being formed in order to better meet these two new demands, and to
allow the ISODE to continue to evolve.  Releases made by the ISODE
Consortium will not be in the public domain.  This does not affect
existing releases of the ISODE.  ISODE Consortium Releases will be
made available at zero cost, and with a simple administration
procedure using electronic mail, to all academic organisations and to
all government or not for profit organisations with research as their
primary purpose.  Other organisations will gain access to the source
by joining the ISODE Consortium.  This change is needed to make the
ISODE Consortium viable, and to make the ISODE an effective and
attractive product base.  I hope that you will all support this change
of direction.

I would encourage you to support the ISODE Consortium by joining it,
either as an organisation or as an  individual.


For further information on the ISODE Consortium, please contact
<[e-mail]>.    There is material giving information on
membership of the consortium, the short and long term technical and
organisational plans, and membership applications.




Steve Hardcastle-Kille
ISODE Consortium



***************************************************************************

PRESS RELEASE


FORMATION OF THE ISODE CONSORTIUM



ISODE Consortium        	ISODE Consortium
US Office, c/o MCC		European Office
P.O. Box 200195		        P.O. Box 505
Austin			        LONDON
TX 78720		        SW11 1DX
USA			        UK
Phone: [phone]	Phone: [phone]
Fax:   [phone]	Fax:   [phone]



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

					For more information, contact:
					Steve Hardcastle-Kille
					[phone]
					

London (March 12th  1992) --- The formation of the ISODE Consortium is
announced.


The ISODE Consortium is a not-for-profit cooperative enterprise, whose
mission is to promote and develop the ISODE package of OSI (Open
System Interconnection) applications, which has been used extensively
in the research community.  The ISODE Consortium will be able to
evolve the ISODE software more rapidly than would be possible for any
single member.  This will be to the mutual benefit of members of the
consortium, and will help to stimulate the market for OSI products.
OSI is key technology to enable open communication between and within
organisations.  Membership of the ISODE Consortium is open to any
organisation in any country.  This press release marks the official
start of the ISODE Consortium.


Organisations which have so far committed as founder members of the
ISODE Consortium are:

 o  BNR Europe Ltd.
 o  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
 o  Electricite de France, Direction des Etudes et Recherches (EDF/DER)
 o  Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC)
 o  National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA)
 o  Performance Systems International (PSI)
 o  SURFnet (Dutch Research Network)
 o  SWITCH (Swiss Research Network)
 o  University College London 
 o  University of Michigan
 o  X-Tel Services Ltd. 

Discussions are ongoing with other organisations, in particular with a
number of  vendors.   An up to date  list of members is available from
the ISODE Consortium.

The ISODE Consortium's members include the vendors and users of OSI
Application Software who have based their efforts on the ISODE system.
ISODE is a package of OSI Application Software, currently in the
public domain.  The key components of ISODE are X.400 Message Handling
Services (PP) and X.500 Directory Services (QUIPU).  In addition,
there are other OSI Applications and the OSI upper layer services
needed to support these applications.  ISODE Applications operate both
over a variety of standard OSI Stacks, and over TCP/IP.  This approach
to multiple stacks, known as the "transport switch" has enabled
deployment of ISODE in a wide range of environments, and facilitated
interworking between those environments.  The QUIPU X.500 is the
dominant component of the only large scale OSI Directory so far
deployed (over half a million entries in twenty countries). The PP
X.400 MTA (Message Transfer Agent) is a high volume message switch,
with emphasis on protocol and content conversion, in service use at
over a 100 organisations.  The ISODE applications have been
extensively deployed in the research community, and have been used as
a product base by a number of manufacturers.



The ISODE Consortium releases of ISODE will be made exclusively
available to the ISODE Consortium members or by purchase of products
from ISODE Consortium members.  Academic organisations, and not for
profit or government organisations with research as their primary
purpose, will be given zero cost access the ISODE Consortium releases,
on the basis of simply signing a licence with minimal administrative
overhead.  This is to facilitate the continued use of ISODE within
the research community, which is a major strength of the ISODE
package.



The ISODE Consortium will employ engineers directly, in addition to
its coordination role.  Work on ISODE will be done by these engineers
and by members of the ISODE Consortium.  The key role of the
consortium will be to act as the focus, and to undertake and to
control key developments.  This cooperative approach will be to the
mutual benefit of members of the consortium, and will stimulate the
market for OSI products.  The initial engineering work of the
consortium will concentrate on the X.400 MTA and X.500 DSA, and on
conformance testing of those components.  It is also planned to
incorporate a new FTAM (File Transfer and Access Management) and VT
(Virtual Terminal) from Control Data Corporation.  Participation of
user and service organisations in the ISODE Consortium will allow for
early use of the ISODE software, and ensure the focus on meeting real
user needs.



The ISODE Consortium will establish US Offices in May,  located in the
Washington, DC area, and plans to open a European Office in Spring
1993.



The President of the ISODE Consortium is Steve Hardcastle-Kille, who
has worked extensively with ISODE, and is the architect of the X.400
and X.500 components.  The board of directors of the ISODE Consortium is:

 o   Phil Cannata (MCC)
 o   Lyman Chapin (BBN) Chair of the Internet Activities Board
 o   Dave Farber (University of Pennsylvania)
 o   Dan Lynch (President, Interop)
 o   Hugh Smith (Chairman, X-Tel Services).   


Steve Hardcastle-Kille states "The ISODE Consortium is an
important step for the ISODE package, which will allow it to continue
to flourish.  The ISODE Consortium will aggressively evolve ISODE,
with particular focus on the X.400 and X.500 applications, which are
the flagships of OSI.  The Consortium aims to produce systems suitable
for large scale deployment, which must be easy to configure, have
extensive management facilities, and be able to interoperate both with
OSI and non-OSI systems.  The combination of OSI Applications running
over TCP/IP is a winner, and the ISODE Consortium will promote this in
parallel with pure OSI."

Dan Lynch, noted that "we are taking a leaf from the Berkeley Unix
book.  The ISODE Consortium will rapidly disseminate OSI applications
by delivering a highly functional collection of working software for
all vendors to emulate or copy."

Lyman Chapin stated that "In order for anyone to realize the potential
benefits of OSI, well-engineered software must be widely available.
ISODE was the first implementation of OSI's application protocols that
could be used with existing TCP/IP internets; it enabled software
engineers to do the experimental work that had been frustrated by the
scarcity of pure-OSI networks.  The formation of the ISODE Consortium
ensures that this valuable resource will be preserved and extended."



*****************************************************************








							March 1992

		ISODE Consortium

	     INDEX of Online Archive

Documents available by anonymous FTP to isode.com

Documents with the suffix .txt are ASCII text, and document with the
suffix .ps are Postscript.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------


ic-overview.ps
ic-overview.txt
	Title: An Introduction to the ISODE Consortium 
	Pages: 5
	A brief overview of the ISODE Consortium 

ic-general.ps
ic-general.txt
	Title: The ISODE Consortium
	Pages: 28
	A fuller description of the ISODE Consortium, covering all the
	material in the document "An Introduction to the ISODE Consortium".


press-mar92.ps
press-mar92.txt
	Press release announcing the ISODE Consortium
	Pages: 2


individual.txt
	Application form for Individual Membership
	Pages: 1


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you are anable to access the archive directly, documents may be
requested from the ISODE Consortium, either online or paper. 

Email: [e-mail]


ISODE Consortium        	ISODE Consortium
US Office, c/o MCC		European Office
P.O. Box 200195		        P.O. Box 505
Austin			        LONDON
TX 78720		        SW11 1DX
USA			        UK
Phone: [phone]	Phone: [phone]
Fax:   [phone]	Fax:   [phone]