Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pa.dec.com!shlump.nac.dec.com!netrix.nac.dec.com!lan_csse
From: lan_csse@netrix.nac.dec.com (CSSE LAN Test Account)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso
Subject: Re: High Cost of OSIng
Message-ID: <19074@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Date: 16 Jan 91 20:57:44 GMT
References: <9101150148.AA22136@uc.msc.edu>
Sender: news@shlump.nac.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment
Lines: 31

In article <9101150148.AA22136@uc.msc.edu> rusty@WIN1.IMS.ABB.COM ("Rusty Rowell") writes:
>>                                     ... Is the high cost of standards 
>> impeding efforts to adopt those standards?  Do you know less about OSI 
>> because you can't readily (cheaply) obtain standards specifications?
>
>Indirectly.  I am frequently annoyed by the fact that I can't get these 
>documents electronically as the TCP/IP RFC's.  ...
>I am working from hearsay, trade rags and Internet mailing lists.

I'll second that.  In addition, I'd like to point out the real value in
being able to use tools like grep on the RFCs; this is impossible with
the OSI documents.  Since they rarely have a very useful index, you sort
of have to just know where to find something, or do a linear search.

One problem I've had recently is that I'm trying to locate all the places
where numeric ASN.1 values are defined.  You know, things like:
	#define INTID       0x02        /* integer */
and	#define IPID        0x40        /* IpAddress */

These are easy to find in our .h files, but I'd like to know where the
authors found them, what other values may be officially defined, etc.
I think I found the above INTID, but I'm still looking for the place
that says that 0x40 is the code for an IP address, as well as just
exactly what bytes may follow this code.  (E.g., is it legal for an
IP address to be, say, 3 or 6 bytes long?  And what's the code that
says that a DECnet address follows?)

It'd be pretty easy to answer such questions if I could run a program
to chew up the documents and spit out interesting portions.  We're now
well into the age of electronic text-processing; when is ISO going to 
join the rest of the world?  (At least for networking standards? ;-)