Subject: Re: [Simple] simple-chat status

From: Geir Arne Sandbakken <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:54:28 +0200

It is unfortunate if my inability to move the draft forward kills a good 
idea. IMHO, the good thing about simple-chat is that it is nimble. If 
you have MSRP implemented, you can fairly easily add chat room support, 
bring it to SIPit and test it.

We had two good WGLC reviews- and I believe all of the issues can be 
resolved and published before the next meeting.

My vote goes to keeping the draft - and not break it into pieces.

Thanks!
Geir Arne

Ben Campbell wrote:
> (As chair)
>
> The sense of the room in Stockholm was that we no longer needed the 
> simple-chat as it currently exists, but that we did need to make sure 
> we preserved the information in it that describes how a focus works 
> with MSRP and message/cpim, whether as a scaled down version of 
> simple-chat or as an addition to the XCON documents.
>
> I'd like to make a consensus call on the list to confirm or deny that 
> approach. (I just saw Hisham's email--what do other's think?)
>
> Thanks!
>
> ben.
>
> On Jul 27, 2009, at 5:21 PM, Ben Campbell wrote:
>
>> (as SIMPLE chair)
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> We originally started work on draft-ietf-simple-chat back in 2007, 
>> with the idea that we could finish it quickly, and have something 
>> that works prior to completion of similar, but more general work in 
>> XCON.
>>
>> It's been two years now, so we clearly didn't finish it quickly, and 
>> it's been sitting without update or discussion since last spring. 
>> (Please don't take that as a complaint against the authors. I don't 
>> mean it that way--we're all busy here.) We are looking at how to get 
>> the draft moving again, but there's an important question we should 
>> address first:
>>
>> Is simple-chat still relevant? Should we take the effort to fix it, 
>> or should we shoot that milestone in the head?
>>
>> To recap, we WGLC'd simple-chat last April. There were non-trivial 
>> (but not necessarily earth-shattering) issues brought up in the 
>> feedback. That is, there's still at least a bit of work left to do on 
>> it.
>>
>> Perhaps Adam or Alan could comment on the status of the related work 
>> in XCON?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Ben.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Simple mailing list
>> [email-masked]
>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/simple
>
> _______________________________________________
> Simple mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/simple

---

From: "Mary Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 17:53:04 -0500

Geir,

I don't think it's only the issue of the document not having been
updated. IMHO, the fact that one of the WGLC reviews was from the WG
chair and the other from me, who only did the review because it seemed
the WG was moving forward with this document, doesn't indicate
significant WG interest.  It's up to the chairs to decide if there
remains enough WG interest to complete the document. And, I didn't
understand at all that we were talking about breaking anything into
pieces - the work in XCON is a superset. 

Regards,
Mary.   

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
Of Geir Arne Sandbakken
Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 8:54 AM
To: Ben Campbell
Cc: Simple WG
Subject: Re: [Simple] simple-chat status

Thanks!
Geir Arne

---

From: Geir Arne Sandbakken <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:13:56 +0200

Mary,

Sorry, I was a bit unclear. What I meant was breaking the draft into 
pieces. The chat room attribute and nickname mechanism to be pulled out 
of the draft, and moved into the XCON framework and the CCMP protocol. 
Keeping the MSRP switch in this or another draft - having a normative 
reference to a framework to achieve these semantics.

IMHO, implementation interest is what should decide if it should be 
published.

Regards,
Geir Arne

---

From: Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 15:34:12 -0500

<as-chair>
Since we originally had a consensus to pursue this milestone, we need  
a clear consensus to stop working on it if we are going to do so. So  
far, we have a few people in favor of stopping the work(Adam, Mary,  
myself, and a few others), but we've also seen some opinions in favor  
of keeping it (Hisham, Geir Arne, and maybe a little bit of Adrian).

I'd like to see the following from those who have expressed an  
opinion, (and even if you haven't expressed one so far.):

1. Have you or do you plan to implement simple-chat? Or are you aware  
of other's work in this area? (Adrian pointed to one implementation so  
far.)

2. If you answered yes to 1., if the XCON framework and  CCMP were  
complete_today_, would your answer to 1 change?

3. If _both_ simple-chat and XCON/CCMP were complete _today_, would  
your answer to 1 change?

</as-chair>

---

From: "Mary Barnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 16:17:04 -0500

Hi Geir,

I guess I'm still confused as I don't think you'll need the Nickname
mechanism added to MSRP if you use the XCON Framework (you get that
functionality for free, if you will).  I also think the MSRP switch
functionality is something that can be naturally provided by the XCON
conference server/focus.  This had been described in an earlier version
of the XCON chat document (which has been around just a few months less
than the SIMPLE document since 2005).   Also, if you use XCON, you don't
need the chat room attribute per se as the "media"/"signaling" type is
part of the conference object.  

I honestly don't see a problem if someone wants to implement this
version of the simple-chat document since it could easily be evolved to
the XCON framework.  That all said, there is already an implementation
of the XCON protocol (CCMP) and it should not be that difficult to
combine an MSRP implementation with that rather than having a standalone
MSRP chat implementation (which requires normative changes to MSRP as
opposed to the XCON solution).    

Regards,
Mary. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Geir Arne Sandbakken [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 4:14 AM
To: Barnes, Mary (RICH2:AR00)
Cc: Ben Campbell; Simple WG
Subject: Re: [Simple] simple-chat status

Mary,

Regards,
Geir Arne

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On 
> Behalf Of Geir Arne Sandbakken
> It is unfortunate if my inability to move the draft forward kills a 
> good idea. IMHO, the good thing about simple-chat is that it is 
> nimble. If you have MSRP implemented, you can fairly easily add chat 
> room support, bring it to SIPit and test it.
>

---

From: Hisham Khartabil <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 02:01:36 +1000

2009/8/8 Ben Campbell <[email-masked]>

> <as-chair>
> Since we originally had a consensus to pursue this milestone, we need a
> clear consensus to stop working on it if we are going to do so. So far, we
> have a few people in favor of stopping the work(Adam, Mary, myself, and a
> few others), but we've also seen some opinions in favor of keeping it
> (Hisham, Geir Arne, and maybe a little bit of Adrian).
>
> I'd like to see the following from those who have expressed an opinion,
> (and even if you haven't expressed one so far.):
>
> 1. Have you or do you plan to implement simple-chat? Or are you aware of
> other's work in this area? (Adrian pointed to one implementation so far.)

Yes. Two of my customers (or ex-customers now) requested this to be
implemented in the IMS system we are selling them.

> complete_today_, would your answer to 1 change?

No. I don't need to go implement a whole XCON framework just to get this
basic functionality into my solution, especially if that is the only
functionality I'm interested in for now. I just need the basic simple chat
service.

>
> 3. If _both_ simple-chat and XCON/CCMP were complete _today_, would your
> answer to 1 change?

No.

Obviously there was interest in this draft a long time ago, and that's why
it was added as a charter item. I think we also need to ask the question out
of those who are of the opinion to stop the work on this:

4. Have you had a change of heart because you've always believed that
simple-chat is a temp solutionand now its taken too long and CCMP is close
to completion anyway?

5. Were you always not interested in simple-chat

I would like to point out that simple-chat is delayed not because of any
technical issues, but rather editors not having the cycles. I don't
understand why we would abandon a draft that is complete (albiot one final
revision updating minor issues).

Regards,
Hisham

---

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:08:02 +0200

Hi,

I agree that there hasn't been a great interest for simple-chat lately. But I'm not sure if there is any more interest for XCON-based chat either. See more inline.  

Ben Campbell wrote:
>
>1. Have you or do you plan to implement simple-chat? Or are 
>you aware of other's work in this area? (Adrian pointed to one 
>implementation so
>far.)

Actually, I'm not sure. To my understanding there are implementations of OMA/GSMA version of simple-chat, and at least some customers are asking for this. (This is BTW roughly the same set of customers that would be intested in MSRP-ACM, i.e. the ones that are planning to deploy the GSMA Rich Communication Suite (RCS) service, where MSRP is used for 1-to-and and multiparty IM and file transfer.) What is unclear to me is whether those implementations would want to follow IETF's simple-chat should that ever complete. Most likely the adaptation would be technically quite easy.

>
>2. If you answered yes to 1., if the XCON framework and  CCMP 
>were complete_today_, would your answer to 1 change?
>
>3. If _both_ simple-chat and XCON/CCMP were complete _today_, 
>would your answer to 1 change?
>

I admit I should go and read the related XCON specs before saying anything. But what I'm worried about them is whether they are merely a set of baselines and frameworks or do they actually define all the details that are needed for interoperable implementations. 

Is there anyone who has tried to implement MSRP chat with the XCON specs? It would be nice to get their feedback.

Markus