Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!EDINBURGH.AC.UK!J.Henshall
From: J.Henshall@EDINBURGH.AC.UK
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso
Subject: X-WINDOWS & OSI
Message-ID: <06.Jun.89..14:24:26.bst..180574@EMAS-A>
Date: 6 Jun 89 13:24:26 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 19

Things have gone a little quite on the Western Front, so here goes with a wee
poke into the embers of architectural fundamentalism.

What is going to be the outcome of the impending battle of placement of X?
There can be no question of the fundamental importance of the inclusion of X in
the OSI portfolio, but how does it relate to the architectural design?  X
requires a reliable byte stream environment for operation, any other 'higher'
issues being dealt with by it's internal design.  This, sensibly, dictates that
X should be defined as an extended application 'stack' sitting directly on top
of Transport.  The primary arguments for this lie clearly in aspects of
efficiency - reduced overhead in establishment of a window, and in the data
minimisation over the 'wire' during operation - but this will be countered by
the fundamentalist argument, i.e. X can only be seen within OSI as an
application and as such must operated via ACSE.

This is perhaps the best forum for open discussion of the principles at stake
here, so lets have a debate...any takers?

John