Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!gateway
From: pv@eng.sun.COM (Peter Vanderbilt)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400
Subject: Re: Is X.400 good for international mail?
Message-ID: <9101150218.AA10632@polya.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 15 Jan 91 02:29:17 GMT
Lines: 81
Approved: usenet@ICS.UCI.EDU

>  From: Allan Cargille <Allan.Cargille@pilot.cs.wisc.edu>

>  } Better would be some kind of living document available on the net that
>  } was a repository for body part definitions.  [...]

>  I think that it could be a useful step forward to establish an interim
>  OID registry.  However, isn't it correct that such an OID registry must
>  be globally known, and otherwise it is worthless?  By "globally known" I
>  mean known or accessible in the worldwide community of X.400
>  implmentors.  Therefore I do not think that simply announcing it on
>  this list would work, or even maintaining a living document on the
>  net.

I agree except that I fear someone may take away from this the notion
that all 88 OIDs would have to be under an OID subtree assigned to some
"global" group such as IETF X.400 OPS, RARE, OIW or EWOS/ETSI.

Let's keep in mind that definition, registration, and advertisement are
three different things.  By "definition" I mean the act of setting down
the rules for conveyance of a particular kind of document.  By
"registration", I mean the act of assigning a particular OID to a
definition.  By "advertisement", I mean the act of making known that
OID and definition.

I think it's possible to have definition and registration be done by an
individual as long as advertisement is global.

>  [...] I think that some global concensus [must] be achieved for the
>  use of OIDs, even ones that have not been formally registered by the
>  owner of the data item or product.

This is a very important point.  Consensus is necessary.  What we don't
want is many different, incompatible definitions for the same thing.
We also don't want definitions that are not well defined (one's that
permit incompatible implementations).

The danger with what I suggested above is that an individual, working
alone, may create a definition that is inappropriate or inconvenient in
some way, thus causing others to create an alternative definition.

This may also be a problem if the "owners" of objects create
definitions without really understanding things, such as X.400, ASN.1
and character set issues.  (A vendor such as LOTUS may be smart enough
to do the right thing, but will most?  They are usually in a completely
different business and don't know (and don't want to know) anything
about X.400 ).

Some of the areas I see as potentially causing problems are:

    Defining a format that relies on ASN.1 encoding of the data (rather
    than simply using the octet-aligned option).

    Defining a format that relies on the parameters part.

    Inclusion of data whose format is machine dependent (such as ints).

    Requiring the use of one of CRLF or LF as line delimiters (rather
    than allowing both).

    Not allowing for international character sets.

(My hope is to define formats that correspond to the way the data is
used by the application -- I'd like to avoid application-specific
filters for translating between network form and application form.)

>  What about having the new IETF OSI
>  X.400 Operations working group and the RARE MHS Project (in Europe)
>  maintain a joint listing of adopted OIDs?  Would it be better
>  to have them jointly defined by the NIST X.400 Interoperability
>  working group, and its peer groups in Europe and Asia?

I'd like to see these groups create guidelines for body part
definitions such that anyone following these guidelines would have a
good chance of having that definition widely accepted.  (The MHS SIG of
OIW (NIST) has done some work along these lines.) They should also
agree on mechanisms for advertising definitions.

I'd rather not have these groups actually doing the definitions because
I think the process may be too slow.

Pete