Minutes from December Internet Fax meeting
James Rafferty <jrafferty <at> worldnet.att.net>
1999-01-06 20:54:37 GMT
To all -
Attached are the final minutes from the December Internet fax meeting, for
which our scribe Graham Klyne did his usual fine job.
I will send copies of the Powerpoint presentations to be posted to our
ietf-fax web site for those who want to review them.
Regards,
James Rafferty
Chair, Internet Fax working group
Final minutes follow:
Minutes - Internet Fax WG Meeting
Date: December 10, 1998
Chair: James Rafferty
Reported by: Graham Klyne
The agenda as presented below was accepted.
- Agenda bash
- Planned ITU reference to RFCs
- Internet drafts review
- Other drafts
- Review of charter update
- Interworking update
- Fax over IPP status
- Planned ITU reference to RFCs
The joint work on Internet Fax has helped to create a more practical
working relationship between ITU/IETF. In particular, the ITU has again
agreed to reference IETF
RFCs to define the "Full Mode" of T.37. (see slides)
ISOC/IETF have been requested to provide completed documents and final
RFC numbers to the ITU-T as soon as possible. The next ITU meeting is
in late March/early April 1999 (approval meeting is April 1).
Per rapporteur Herman Silbiger, the documents need to be circulated
and reviewed in ITU well before the next ITU meeting.
Ideally, the final drafts/RFCs need to be ready by Jan 24 and then
submitted as contributions for ITU member review.
- Internet drafts review
The "-Goals-" draft has been sent to IESG review for publication as an
informational RFC. The "-eifax-" draft is very stable at rev -11.
The reporting extensions draft is limited to sending capabilities via
MDN/DSN, using conneg syntax with usage indicated by
"-fax-feature-schema-". The WG also anticipates future mechanisms from
mailcap. The plan is to submit these documents to IESG for standards
track consideration as soon as feature schema is done. Submission will
be coordinated with the 'conneg' WG submission. The relevant 'conneg'
drafts are -reg-, -syntax- and -media-features-.
-- Fax feature schema
Graham Klyne reviewed the status of this draft. Most of it is now
stable. The last set of work has been on handling of color.
The conclusion of this review on color has been as follows:
There is a series of features which can be used to progressively
refine the color capabilities; In the fax feature draft, there are
additional refinements that go beyond that which is specified in the
CONNEG media features document.
This is the first application of the Conneg framework; Authors
Klyne and McIntyre believe they now have a reasonable balance between
broad color capabilities and full color matching.
There is a new draft which incorporates these features that will be
issued as soon as the ID directory opens up. In the meantime, it will
be posted to the WG web site. The WG Last Call will be extended to
allow for sufficient review time of the latest draft.
Concerning an IESG last call once the documents are submitted, this is
nominally 2 weeks, but a holiday period is approaching and one of the
ADs is mostly unavailable for the rest of the year. The chair will
try to ensure some review in this time period once the documents have
been submitted to the IESG.
--- Full addressing
The status of this document was presented by Claudio Allocchio:
[[[see slides]]]
The PINT WG requsted additional dialtone/wait-for-dialtone characters
in dialing string, which are addressed in the current draft.
There are security concerns regarding possible disclosure of access
codes, etc, in address.
There was some discussion on what level of requirement the optional
address elements specified in the full addressing draft need to be
supported. There was some support for the current SHOULD and some
for must; the chair noted that Normative references are really imposed
by the protocol documents which would use this document .
The conclusion was that there is a requirement to make it clear that
the additional recipient qualifiers are optional, and a minimum set
should be used. [see wording in draft]. Therefore, it was agreed by
the room to add that only the strictly needed elements SHOULD be used.
There is also a need to reference RFC821 or the equivalent DRUMS (if
ready in time) for maximum length of local part that a recipient must
support.
There has been a request to use ";" as alternative to "/" for
parameters; but, ";" needs to be quoted in mailbox. A greater range of
allowed control sequences in address has been requested; this can be
achieved by additional 'qualif-type1' elements.
Glen Parsons noted that comments were submitted to the list by the
voice community requesting that they be able to use "voice=" form.
In addition, there is interest in using "AMIS=", which has two
telephone numbers, where the 1st is the number of the voicemail
system and the second is number of mailbox.
There was support from the floor for for several future extensions of
this type, hence the most important need is for an IANA considerations
section to be included in the draft so that other communities
to add extensions.
There was some discussion on the appropriate process to be used in
maintaining registrations for this name space.
It was felt there is a need for IANA procedures for registering both
new keywords and qualifiers.
It was noted that the development of standards track documents was one
of the ways to register new keywords and qualifiers, but not the only
way. The consensus was that an IANA considerations section is needed
within this document and it should be reviewed on the list. Since
this document is not on the critical path [for ITU cooperation], it was
proposed that early January would be a good timeframe.
In further discussion, it was noted that the pending SIP document from
the MMUSIC WG has a URL scheme that uses phone addresssing elements.
The question was raised on whether we should try for alignment between
this and the e-mail addressing work? It was noted that by the author
that some attempt at alignment has already been made.
The chair summarized the discussion by stating that the full
addressing document has been available for some time, and has been
subjected to significant levels of review. Final detail comments
should be set to the list for a targeted completion in January, once
the draft which includes the IANA considerations section has been
posted.
- Other drafts
--- The related work from the 'conneg' WG was summarized by chair Ted
Hardie:
The -reg- draft has undergone WG and IETF last call, and is in IESG review.
The -media-features- draft is in IETF last call: some comments
suggesting small revisions have been received.
Regarding the -syntax- draft, Hardie suggested that interested persons
should come to the conneg WG meeting scheduled for later in the day.
The decision on moving to last call will be made after today's conneg
meeting. It was noted that the fax feature schema document contains
many examples that help to clarify the content of the syntax document.
--- T.30 feature mapping
Per the chair, there is a WG consensus that this document is needed. It
is , intended to be progressed as an informational
document. Author Klyne noted that there is a section that is still
missing, dealing with the detail of transformation from T.30 DIS to
conneg feature expressions, pending completion of the fax schema draft.
The conclusion was that the goal is to complete and stabilize on January
time frame.
- Review of charter update
[see slides from chair]
What's left?
--- Potential progression of the simple mode documents to draft
standard. The necessary 6 months has elapsed. The documents need
to be revisited, so that comments and interworking testing experience
can be folded in. This may result in recycle at proposed or move to
draft, depending on whether any technical changes are needed.
--- onramp/offramp: Offramp work has been deferred. Onramp has been
left out of scope to date, but interworking experience suggests that
this decision should be reviewed. DSN/MDN extensions for offramps to be
considered. There could be problems with IPR, and the experience of
other groups suggests this is a difficult area to standardize.
--- DSN/MDN extensions for processability (can receiver view/print the
document as received?): The Fax WG has pushed the standard features of
DSN/MDN to the limit; It was noted that the members of the DRUMS WG
are interested in considering MDN/DSN extensions (and mailcap) as
priorities for work by the email community once DRUMS is complete.
--- New IETF work: security, ODMR, Mailcap.
There was some discussion about current and pending IETF work which
may be valuable to incorporate for Internet fax use it is available.
Paul Hoffman provided a short review of the status of security for
email. The OpenPGP message format has been approved.
S/MIME WG is ready for IETF last call next week on their main
documents.
A difference between the two approaches is that S/MIME has a much
better-specified public key infrastructure interface than OpenPGP.
This may be viewed as an advantage or a disadvantage. The three main
drafts are base format, message format,and certification. A 4th draft
(ESS) is looking at signed return receipts. All of these documents
are on the same timeline. There is also security labels (labelling
for vetting who can see a document).
-- Other potential charter items
There was discussion on whether an an implementer's guide is an
appropriate document. It was noted that Mike Moldovan has volunteered
to worki on such as draft, based on interworking experiences.
It was not clear what addition charter milestones will be acceptable
to the ADs. It was noted that for document/process issues, a mailing
list may stay open even if the WG closes. It was further noted that
gateway issues may involve a lot of work and IETF experience is
limited. There was thought that incorporation of new features such as
additional security and enhanced MDN/DSN may go beyond full mode
(super-mode?) The question of the need for security gateways between
G3 and email was briefly discussed, but this is not really needed
until there is deployment, which currently is non-existant for G3 fax.
- File Formats - there was brief discussion on file formats other than
TIFF (e.g. postscript,
PDF). Should this be revisited? Current progress in ITU to extend
resolutions, include new compression (e.g. JBIG2, etc.). Need to
consider extending TIFF format to encompass new developments. It was
noted that by the chair stable references would need to be in place
in a 6-9 month timeframe; JBIG2 is far enough out to be out
of scope.
There was the further comment that "Super-fax" would need to reconcile
fundamental differences in transmission models of fax and e-mail.
- Status of MailCap and ODMR(On Demand Mail Relay)
The Mailcap -- activity is going on behind the scenes, expect some
news about January. The ODMR draft from Gellens (draft-gellens
-on-demand-05.txt) is awaiting a pending new standards track
authentication method based on digest authentication for SASL.
Completion of the draft is targeted in the next couple of months
timeframe. The method currently operates at level of a full
domain rather than individual mailboxes, but the author believes it
could be extended if required.
--- Charter review timescales
[See James' slide]
Some straw polls were conducted on refined/new milestones.
There was Consensus for adding a milestone of an implementers guide
as work item, for January submission as I-D.
Onramp/offramp: A considerations document was proposed for February.
The room felt that this is a complicated topic, and this is not an
"emergency" task, hence wary of pushing for a quick result. It was
suggested that this becomes less of an immediate
focus. The chair agreed to push this date back, noting
implementer feedback would help here.
- Progressing Simple Mode Documents to Draft Standard
There was some discussion on potential revisions to the simple mode
documents. Points made includedupdating RFC2305 language to be more
specific and clear about some of the gateway issues 2) .
It was felt there is a need to document interoperability, and use of
licensed technology. This sequed into a brief IPR discussion on
known patents. The understanding of the chair with respect to these
matters was 1) For Biscom we don't yet know if their patent overlaps
simple mode in any way (the chair is in contact with them) and
2) Matsushita patent was stated to be be non-overlapping in mail to
the list by one of the patent holders; a related statement has been
posted to the IETF. It was further noted that the draft standard
requirement involves finding two interoperable implementations
which employ licensable technology on an open non-discriminatory basis;
i.e. two examples of the IPR being used in a demonstrably
non-infringing fashion is sufficient to meet the "reasonable" condition
of RFC 2026.
The chair asked if January 1999 was a reasonable timeframe for
proceeding to draft status for simple mode? It was counter-proposed
that February be the target in order to have things in shape
for the March IETF.
There was a proposal from the floor to to combine simple and extended
documents. The chair and the rapporteur stated that this would be
unacceptable to ITU. It was clarified that it would be more practical
to merge documents when *both* are ready to advance to draft standard,
so that this would be much later.
The conclusion of the room was that the target should be February 1999
for publication of draft mode documents, followed by a review at the
March meeting and formal submission to the IESG in April.
Proposed: I-D profile of ODMR profile for Internet fax published April
1999. There was some discussion on whether this would be informational
or standards track, but it was concluded that this can't be resolved
until there is an ODMR document available for reference.
Proposed: I-D profile on refinements to reporting extensions for
Internet fax. This is likely to be linked to work by the mail
community on extensions to DSN/MDN, but the fax community needs to
participate to ensure that our needs are met.
Conclusion: The chair will update the milestones based on the
charter review and post them to the list. It may be sufficient to
simply add milestones and not do a full charter update.
- Interworking update
The chair introduced this agenda item, noting that
some interoperability testing has been performed:
--- In Japan, in October 1998, there was
testing of interoperability of simple mode among fax vendors (8 vendors).
All testing was done over the Internet. Contents of testing was much
like the San Jose tests.
The Wide project has prepared a free software toolkit for Internet fax
systems.
--- San Jose: December 1998
[see James' slide]
There was testing by 17 companies in a face to face two day session.
Just about everything in the simple mode and TIFF profiles but lossless
JBIG was tested successfully. It was noted that
iImplementors need to read TIFF-S section in RFC2301 very carefully.
Some implementors assumed TIFF-F constraints on bit order and byte
order applied, which was inconsistent with the S profile constraints
used in simple mode. The related suggestion was to add profile labels
to relevant chapter headings when updating the RFC 2301 text. There
was also an issue regarding the proper handling if other multipart
structures with other media types come into play. RFC 2305
currently says multipart failure handling is all-or-nothing; may need
to be reviewed.
Support for message/RFC822 for forwarding was uneven.
This suggests that some clarification of required MIME support should
be provided in the update to RFC 2305. It was also noted that onramps
may need to use the "badfaxlines" TIFF attribute (allowed in profile F,
not in S). But general TIFF behaviour is to ignore unrecognized tags
(this only applies to MH/MR encodings).
The proposal to create an "Implementation Discoveries" document has
been well received and will be added to the charter milestones as
agreed during the charter review.
In other review of results, Dave Crocker noted that there was much
use of non-standard addressing for offramps. So far, there was not
much telephone use, but that present was very successful. Lots of small
bugs were found in implementations(but that is what these events are
for).
Lloyd McIntyre review the results for TIFF profile interoperability
(also tested in San Jose): This entailed testing profiles within TIFF
other than S and F. Three participants tested profiles J, C, and M. The
L profile was not tested (color JBIG). Testing continues in US and
Japan. He anticipates that all of the profiles will be fully
tested by January 1999, with issue of full report of implications to
RFC 2301. It was noted that the IMC interworking event will be in
about 6 months. Sample files will be posted on the IMC web site. In
addition, EMA is working on a public interoperability demonstration.
The good news here is that real implementations are being developed.
- Fax over IPP status
[see Rich Shockey's slides]
See: <draft-shockey-ipp2ifax-00.txt>
The starting point is to ensure that use of fax over IPP meets the
requirements of -goals-. There are some added benefits (session mode).
The protocol documents already exist (Informational in January 1999).
There is work required which includes 1) describe how to satisfy legal and
"custom and practice"
requirements, 2) "Watermarking" of pages, 3) cover page generation, 4)
Sender
identification, and 5) Gateway issues and attribute mapping for file
types and relay modes. There are also some questions of usage to
resolve. IPP has an advantage of being "recipient driven"; no media
limits imposed by the system.
Fax WG members are invited (urged) to participate in these discussions,
which will take place outside of the Internet Fax WG.
The Mail list is: ifx <at> pwg.org.
Subscribe by sending message to <majordomo <at> pwg.org>
with message body containing "subscribe ifx <your-e-mail-address>".
Some volunteers were noted.
In another item, it was noted that there is an MDN/DSN interoperability
event planned in February 1999.
--The meeting closed at 11:40--
*------------------------------------------------*
James Rafferty
President, Human Communications LLC
12 Kevin Drive
Danbury, CT 06811-2901
USA
Voice/Fax: +1-203-746-4367
Email: JRafferty <at> worldnet.att.net
J_Rafferty_HC <at> compuserve.com
jrafferty <at> humancomm.com
HC Web Site: http://www.humancomm.com
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