Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!ucbvax!THUMPER.BELLCORE.COM!jxr From: jxr@THUMPER.BELLCORE.COM (Jonathan Rosenberg) Newsgroups: comp.mail.multi-media Subject: Re: Multi-media mail standards; Forw: Use of ODA in the Internet Message-ID: Date: 20 Aug 90 15:39:28 GMT References: <1990Aug19.195257.13157@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Distribution: inet Organization: The Internet Lines: 54 Subject: Re: Multi-media mail standards; Forw: Use of ODA in the Internet Sender: mmm-people-request@venera.isi.edu To: mmm-people@venera.isi.edu > That list of standards efforts in multimedia was excellent, but there is a > body of work that it didn't cover. I mean the current efforts to standardize > "Object Management", including tangible media objects, that are happening in > the microcomputer world. It seems very likely that this work will have a major > effect on the form of any real working standard, as microcomputers are by far > the most likely terminals for any MM document or mail system. > I think that a standard that required a computer costing over $1000 (today's money) > is likely to lose ground, since there are tens of millions of PCs, Macs, etc., out there. > . . . > DEBATE ? >I would like to start a debate going on the advantages/disadvantages of this > approach to multimedia documents. Well, you asked for it ... I must admit to being quite confused about the relationship of the kinds of standards/architectures you discussed in your message & a mm mail document standard. It is clear that in order to be usable as a mail standard, a document architecture must have a specified interchange format (also known as a datastream). I.e., the arch must specify the actual bits that are to be placed into the message to represent the document. Now, if I understand the standards you have described (and, I may not understand them correctly), they are descriptions of application program interfaces that allow executing processes to manipulate mm objects. This is obviously an important kind of standard, but I fail to see how one of these standards can be said to be a "mmm document standard". To be useful, one would have to define an interchange format for each standard. Now, this might be possible for any one of these standards, but given the original impetus for them (application program tool kits/standards), I'm not sure they lend themselves to mail standards. To stretch the analogy a little, I could claim that X is a graphics mail standard, since X allows applications to manipulate graphical objects. But, I hope no one would make this claim. Am I way off base here? Or, are you suggesting that we start with (one of) these standards & come up with an appropriate interchange format for them. JR