Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway From: Stef@ICS.UCI.EDU (Einar Stefferud) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400 Subject: Re: Is X.400 good for international mail? Message-ID: <2792.663467594@nma> Date: 10 Jan 91 00:48:40 GMT Reply-To: Stef@ICS.UCI.EDU Lines: 72 Approved: usenet@ICS.UCI.EDU In-reply-to: Your message of Wed, 09 Jan 91 13:17:20 -0500. <910109131718*@MHS> That ideal situation will be where there is ONE, AND ONLY ONE OID for EACH SPECIFIC OBJECT that is to be carried as an X.400 Body Part or Content Type. Lets limit this discussion to carriage as Body Parts, inside P2 envelopes. This OID would (ideally) be registered under some duly constituted Registration Authority, ONCE, and ONLY ONCE, but its OWNER, whoever that may be. LOTUS owns its objects, and LOTUS owes it to its customers to register its object for carriage in X.400. This does not suggest taht teh INTERNET should set up a registry, though it might want to set up a database of OIDs registered by the owners of registered objects. If different people and organizations go off and register the same object for carriage in X.400 in different ways, we will make a mess, so let's not do that. Let's find a way to get each such object registered once, and only once by its proper owner. I don't believe that LOTUS is unaware of this need, but I also don't think that their marketing people have heard from anyone that their customers want to know what their X.400 Body Part OID is. So, my suggestion is that all you complaining customers get on your sales reps and ask for information about the X.400 Body Part OIDs that should be assigned to the objects of your choice. It is well known that companies often (if they are any good) listen to their customers, especially when they hear it through sales folk who are faced with sales resistance related to such matters. We should all note that the OID and its ASN.1 Definition for carriage as an X.400 P2 Body Part is not the same things a full open definition in ASN.1 of the internal structure of all the information inside the object. It is an ASN.1 specification of the X.400 Body Part containing the object, not the definition of the object itself. The contained object may be expressed as a string of ASCII characters, a bitstring, a byte string, or whatever it makes sense to define it to be, so as to maximize on the value of transporting it via X.400, whatever that might mean. But, it is a really bad idea to have more than one OID for the same definition of any object, because if there is more than one, then all implementations must be coded to deal with all the known OIDs for the same definition. Further, it is even worse to have more than one definition for the same OID. That is why this is prohibited in the standards. The best way to have one and only one OID per definition, and one and only one definition per OID, is to have one and only one entity do the registration. ANSI has finally stepped up to the job of issuing OIDs to organizations (such as LOTUS) so they can become duly registered registration sub-authorities. ANSI will also provide any one who asks with information (or at least point you to information) about how to use their OID to establish a registration authority under you they can register all the objects you amy wish to register. The ANSI contact is: Beth Somerville American National Standards Institute 1430 Broadway, New York, NY 10018 FON: +1 212 642 4976 FAX: +1 212 302 1286 TELEX: 42 42 96 ANSI UI Feel free to mention my name if you wish, thopugh it will not help you to get a better seat. Best...\Stef