Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!joyce!mordor!lll-tis!priam.CERN!denise
From: denise@priam.CERN (Denise Heagerty)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway
Subject: Response to comments on DRAFT/2
Message-ID: <5505*denise@priam.cern>
Date: 14 Sep 88 21:11:00 GMT
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Rather than respond individually to the comments so far, I would like
to answer the following questions:

1. Why should RARE recommend a notation?
2. What the notation is NOT intended to be?
3. What is the real issue?

1. Why should RARE recommend a notation?
   -------------------------------------
A number of tightly linked research groups (e.g. Physicists) will soon have a
requirement to exchange their X.400 addresses and if no recommendation
exists will invent their own. Within Europe most of these user communities
come under the RARE umbrella so this offers a chance to limit the
possibility of many notations being invented. Clearly, a notation only
recognised in Europe is of limited value and probably limited lifetime
(see point 3).

Some immediate examples of where RARE already needs a recommendation:
  o The RARE MHS Documentation (X.400 addresses for contacts).
  o Attendence lists of meetings (at the last RARE Networkshop there was
    a whole range of formats).
  o X.400 address discussions where example addresses are quoted.

2. What the notation is NOT intended to be?
   ----------------------------------------
I think this is already clear to everyone, but just in case, the notation
is:
  o NOT a recommendation for a business card
  o NOT a recommendation for a user interface

The comments related to the user interface are relevant because
a). people will try to enter them directly
b). people tend to quote their addresses in the format they enter them.

3. What is the real issue?
   -----------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Assumption:                                                       |
---------------                                                       |
The assumption made in the DRAFT Recommendation is that there is NO   |
standard user interface which naturally becomes the de facto notation |
for exchanging addresses.                                             |
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Most commercial X.400 user interfaces I have seen use full-screen menus
to request the O/R Name attributes. The most popular mail networks for
high energy physicists (the user community I represent) are EARN/BITNET
and DECnet (i.e mainly VAX/VMS and IBM Mail systems). The most popular
small system is the Macintosh. Most (if not all of these) will have
full-screen menus for O/R name entry.

The counter argument to this is that UNIX systems which are popular in
many research communities will probably all accept RFC 987 syntax at
their user interface.

I believe the DRAFT Recommendation which has been proposed meets its intended
goal of being a short notation for scribling on bits of paper. It is
not intended to be a user interface because of the assumption that there
will not be a single user interface.

What we should now discuss is whether the basic assumption above is true.

-- Denise.