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From: yam@nttmhs.ntt.jp (Toshihiko YAMAKAMI)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: The GRACE Project for OSI Group Communication
Message-ID: <4410@nttmhs.ntt.JP>
Date: 16 Jan 90 00:26:20 GMT
References: <16454@robin.cs.nott.ac.uk>
Sender: news@nttmhs.ntt.JP
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From article <16454@robin.cs.nott.ac.uk>, by sdb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Steve Benford):
> 
> The GRACE (GRoup ACtivity Environment) Project
> ==============================================
> for Group Communication in an OSI Environment
> =============================================

( a lot of stuff deleted, please refer to the original )

It is very interesting. We know there are many communication
research activities in Europe, including many in ESPRIT.
But I did not know there is some project for Group Communication.
MHS/MOTIS based group communication has been under discussion
for rather a long period.

I (I am one of SC18/WG4 member of Japanese Boday) think there
is no definite group communication model in ISO SC18/WG 4.
MHS/MOTIS based communication model is under discussion, and
some working memos were made.
It made me surprised that there exists a real implementation
project based on MHS/MOTIS based enhansed group communication.

Many people will agree that we cannot support group activities
from a lot of series of inter-personal communication.
We need some more powerful model to support group communication.
A group communication agent located over MOTIS/MHS based UA and
MTA is one model.

Maybe another example is network-based hypertext approach.
In OSI view, it is possible to provide such communication
base with standardized hypertext on DFR.

MHS/MOTIS based group communication has one strength. Its
interconnectability of worldwide communication.
It will take some time we can communication some types of
hypertext or higher level document systems in world wide
scale. But e-mail is the easiest background to provide
group communication.
Its weakness will include security-related issues(some
EDI discussion people point out MOTIS/MHS security is
not enough for EDI, maybe same to group communication),
updatability(messages are low level communication primitives,
so information manipulation such as cancel on voting will
be hard tasks on application entity over MOTIS/MHS UA).

MHS/MOTIS group communication has been a long-discussed matter
in ISO SC18/WG 4. Now some CCITT people begins to discuss it
since last year.
We hope GRACE project provide real interconnectable
group communication bases in world wide manner.

-- Tosihiko YAMAKAMI


Toshihiko YAMAKAMI	NTT Telecommunication Networks Laboratories
 Telephone:	+81-468-59-3781 	FAX:	+81-468-59-2546
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