Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!ucbvax!NRTC.NORTHROP.COM!Stef From: Stef@NRTC.NORTHROP.COM (Einar Stefferud) Newsgroups: comp.mail.multi-media Subject: Re: Multi-media mail standards; Forw: Use of ODA in the Internet Message-ID: <21343.650846360@nma.com> Date: 16 Aug 90 22:39:20 GMT References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Stef@nrtc.northrop.com Distribution: inet Organization: The Internet Lines: 45 Hello Nathaniel -- There is no published plan (as yet) for an MMM Workshop in the list of planned workshops to be held on Thursday Afternoon (October 4) but we can easily add one after the fact, and include it in our plan. We will be pleased if you will assume the Chair of an MMM Workshop on October 4. What we would like you to do in preparation is to develop or obtain (from wherever) one or more discussion paper(s) to provide grist for the mill, to be handed out in advance of the workshop, but not included in the proceedings preprint. A report of the workshop, if it jells and produces reportable results, will be added to the finally published (by North-Holland) proceedings. The results that we seek are to form a working subgroup with a set of work items and a plan to produce some useful pre-standards documents wihich can form the basis of further work in the standards bodies. When the work shows that there is indeed a reasonable basis for regular standards body work, it should be packaged as a contribution and contributed in some way so as to facilitate the standards process. You might want to use the MMM mailinglist discussion here as a forum for developing a disucsion paper that delineates the issues. What IFIP would be adding to the current effort (open discussion in this forum) would be a means for focusing the results into a serious pre-standards contribution to the standards bodies. I should note that the X.400 mail paradigm was first conceived in the internet (SMTP. MMDF, HERMES, MM, XMAILR, and passed through IFIP on its way to CCITT, starting in 1977. It was this head start provided by the INTERNET, via pre-standards work in IFIP WG 6.5, that allowed X.400 to be first delivered in 1984. It is very important sometimes to first iron out teh basic conceptual modelling issues in a neutral arena like an IFIP working group, than to try to do it in politically charged standards group meetings. IFIP operates in a non-political framework, open to all interested parties, with no authority to impose anything on anyone, but with standing before the standards bodies so results can be contributed to stand on its own merits. Wehn such work is contributed to the standards boides, with a good concensus behind it, it is pretty good bet that it will progess well. Best...\Stef