Subject: [Fax] WG Last Call Report on Progressing Simple Mode Documents

From: James Rafferty <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 09:24:25 -0500

Folks,   

Late in November, we had a WG Last Call on the "Simple Mode" documents which

have been under consideration for the status of Draft Standard.    

This note is a report on the results of that WG Last Call.   It has been
delayed in part in the hope that some of the outstanding issues could be
resolved, but various issues are still open as indicated below.  

The purpose of the last call was for a final review of the collection of
drafts which have updated the Simple Mode documents which are currently RFC
2301, RFC
2303-4 and RFC 2305.    RFC 2302 was also considered to be among the
documents
proposed for progression to draft standard.    

Per the IETF process, the requirements to progress to draft standard entail
a review of the documents based on implementor experience and preparation of
documentation on interworking demonstrating that there are
at least 2 independent implementations that use all of the features and are
able to interwork.   A third requirement is that all normative references
contained in the documents to progress must also be at the draft standard or
higher 
level.    

During the WG Last Call period in November and December, no additional
technical comments were made.   This is not surprising since the documents
had been under review for several months.   However, some small editorial
changes were identified for some of the documents, basically just to provide
some small editorial corrections and update contact information where
needed.   

The results of the WG Last Call are as follows:   

The document draft-ietf-fax-tiff-fx-04.txt -
File Format for Internet Fax appears to be ready to progress to Draft
Standard.    There are no problems with references, assuming that RFC 2302
or a successor text is sent forward at the same time.  

In addition, a detailed interworking report was prepared and previously
circulated on this list which appears to meet all of the necessary
interworking criteria.    

The related document RFC 2302 on TIFF Registration has no content changes,
but requires an update to contact information, so that a new Internet Draft
draft-ietf-fax-tiff-regbis-00.txt will be released as the current text.
It could be sent for progression for either draft standard or as a BCP
document (Best Current Practice).    Since the content of this document
primarily contains IANA registration content, I would suggest that it go
forward as a BCP, so that it will not need to be progressed again.    As
usual, comments or suggestions on which way to go are welcome.   

The document draft-ietf-fax-service-v2-01.txt - A Simple Mode of Facsimile
Using Internet Mail also appears to be very stable.   However, it is now
dependent on the progression of normative references to Draft Standard
status.   In particular, the RFC 2060 on IMAP4 and RFC 1891 on DSN are
documents outside of the WG that need to progress in order to be
referenced.   Within the WG, there is a dependency on the successor
documents for RFC 2303 and RFC 2304, as well as RFC 2301.    

There has been substantial documentation of interworking for RFC 2305,
notably based on the results of 2 Fax Connect events, but there is a need
for the results to be put in the right format and to complete the process
of getting permissions from participants to use the data.   

In summary, the text for draft-ietf-fax-service-v2-01.txt is stable, but it
is not yet ready to progress to draft standard due to its dependencies.    

The potential courses of action for this document seem to be:   

1.   Keep the document on hold as is until the references are ready and the
interworking documentation is complete.  
2.   Submit the document in its current form and recycle at proposed
standard level to create a new stable reference which can be submitted for
draft std in 6 mths if the references progress during that time.    

I will plan to consult with the new chairs and the ADs on the best way to
go here.   

The remaining documents in the WG Last Call are the revised texts based on
RFC 2303 and 2304.  The documents which went under the Last Call are:   

draft-ietf-fax-faxaddr-v2-00.txt - Minimal FAX address format in Internet
Mail
draft-ietf-fax-minaddr-v2-00.txt - lMinimal GSTN address format in Internet
Mail

No comments were made on the documents, so they appear to be very stable.
 However, documentation of interworking for these documents is still
incomplete.   In particular, the /T33S syntax has not yet been documented
for interworking between 2 independent senders and receivers.   The other
portions of the document WERE implemented in multiple implementations at
the Fax Connect events.    

Again, I urge implementors of Internet fax clients and gateways to come
forward and help us to complete the necessary interworking tests and
documentation.   I have been aware of at least one implementation that
might help us to complete these tests, but we need one more.    I do not
believe there are any issues in these documents concerning normative
references.    

So, the choices for action on these documents seem to be:  

1.  Keep on hold until the interworking data is available
2.   Publish the current texts, which are much easier to read but have no
technical changes, recycling at proposed standard.   

This concludes the report on the WG Last Call.   

My thanks to all of the authors and implementors who have worked hard on
these documents and on related deployments.   

I will consult with the new co-chairs and the ADs on the next steps for the
documents.   

James Rafferty
(outgoing) Chair, Internet Fax WG

* -----------------------------------
James Rafferty
Senior Product Manager, IP Telephony
Brooktrout Technology
410 First Avenue
Needham, MA 02494 USA

Phone:  +1-781-433-9462
Fax: 781-433-9268
Email/Internet Fax:  [email-masked]
Alt Email: [email-masked]

---

From: Dan Wing <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 10:28:11 -0800 (PST)

On Wed, 8 Mar 2000 09:24 -0500, James Rafferty wrote:

> The document draft-ietf-fax-service-v2-01.txt - A Simple Mode of
> Facsimile Using Internet Mail also appears to be very stable.  
> However, it is now dependent on the progression of normative
> references to Draft Standard status.  In particular, the RFC 2060 on
> IMAP4 and RFC 1891 on DSN are documents outside of the WG that need to
> progress in order to be referenced. 

draft-ietf-fax-service-v2-01.txt's reference to RFC1891 is completely
non-normative.

The reference to RFC1891 can safely be completely removed.  We only need
to reference RFC1894.  The only section that mentions either RFC1891 or
1894 is:

   2.3.1     Delivery failure
 
   This section describes existing requirements for Internet mail,
   rather than indicating special requirements for IFax devices.
 
   In the event of relay failure, the sending relay MUST generate a
   failure message, which SHOULD be in the format of a DSN. [14,15]

[14] is RFC1894 (which describes the format of a non-delivery notification
message), and [15] is RFC1891 (which describes the SMTP service
extension).

> Within the WG, there is a dependency on the successor documents for
> RFC 2303 and RFC 2304, as well as RFC 2301.

-Dan Wing