Applications Area

Directors:


   o Erik Huizer:  erik.huizer@surfnet.nl
   o John Klensin:  Klensin@mail1.reston.mci.net


Area Summary reported by John Klensin/MCI and Erik Huizer/SURFnet

This is a short report on the status of the Applications Area as of the
conclusion of the San Jose IETF meeting, December 1994.

The Applications Area current contains the following working groups:


   o Access/Synchronization of the Internet Directories (ASID)
   o Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
   o HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
   o Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
   o Internet White Pages Requirements (WHIP)
   o Mail Extensions (MAILEXT)
   o MHS-DS (MHSDS)
   o Notifications and Acknowledgements Requirements (NOTARY)
   o Quality Information Services (QUIS)
   o TFTP Extensions (TFTPEXTS)


In addition, the Applications Area and the User Services Area jointly
oversee the following working groups:


   o Integrated Directory Services (IDS)
   o Integration of Internet Information Resources (IIIR)
   o Networked Information Retrieval (NIR)
   o Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI)
   o Whois and Network Information Lookup Service (WNILS)


The status of these groups is described in the User Services Area
Report.

The TELNET Working Group (TELNET) was concluded since the last area
report.  TELNET had completed all of its tasks except some documents in
telnet security and privacy.  After review, it was concluded that the
security and privacy issues should be addressed in a separate working
group to be formed in the Security Area.

The OSI Directory Services Working Group (OSIDS) was also concluded,
having completed all of its agenda items.

During the San Jose IETF, the Applications Area also sponsored the
following BOF sessions.  These BOFs are expected to evolve into working
groups.


   o HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
   o HTTP Secure (HTTPSEC)
   o Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)


All of the Applications Area BOFs from the previous IETF meeting in
Toronto have evolved into working groups:  Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) and Quality of Information Services (QUIS) in Applications, and
Support of Firewalls by Applications (SOFA) and Authenticated Firewall
Traversal (AFT) in Security.



HyperText Transfer Protocol BOF (HTTP)

A BOF met to consider IETF standardization of HTTP, the protocol used
for file transfers in the World Wide Web.  It concluded that it would be
useful to document the existing practice in an RFC and then go on to
specify and standardize some extensions, possibly looking toward a new
version of the protocol.  A draft working group charter was discussed
and is now under development.



HTTP Secure BOF (HTTPSEC)

This BOF, jointly sponsored by the Applications and Security Areas, is
discussed in the Security Area report.



Standard Generalized Markup Language BOF (SGML)

As predicted after the Toronto IETF, a group has been formed to examine
the issues associated with using full SGML over MIME. This group will
work cooperatively with SGML Open.  A working group charter for this
group was being reviewed by the IAB and IESG concurrently with the San
Jose meetings.

The working group goal will be to generate a Proposed Standard for
encapsulating SGML in MIME. The charter will state that the working
group will not propose any changes to the SGML standard (ISO 8879) and
will support the SGML Open Technical Report on interchange packages (TR
9401 - Issue B). It was agreed that there was sufficient interest to
establish the MIME Content-Type for SGML Documents Working Group
(MIMESGML). An issues list was developed and milestones were reviewed
and established.


Access/Synchronization of the Internet Directories Working Group (ASID)

Agreement was reached on the following documents:


   o string dn, ufn:  will be submitted for approval as Draft Standards
     as soon as possible.

   o LDAP documents:  will be submitted for approval as Draft Standards,
     pending confirmation that there are independent server
     implementations.

   o CLDAP document:  has already been submitted for approval as
     Proposed Standard.

   o WHOIS++ query language:  will be submitted for approval as Proposed
     Standard.

   o WHOIS++ centroids document:  will be revised in light of centipede
     pilot and resubmitted by the next IETF.

   o SOLO: will be split into two documents:  query language and
     navigation.  Query language will be submitted for approval as
     Proposed Standard as soon as possible.  Navigation will be revised
     pending centipede outcome and progressed then.

   o X.500 schema:  will be revised to include words about 93 schema and
     submitted as an Experimental RFC.

   o labeledURL: suggestion was made to change it to labeledURI, which
     will be communicated back to the author.


Also, discussion was held on the ``oid in RFCs'' problem.  Conclusion
was that there should be a document produced saying how an
IANA-allocated arc should be used, that this arc should be used for
future standards documents when possible, and that old oids should not
be transitioned.


Electronic Data Interchange Working Group (EDI)

The EDI Working Group reviewed work to-date on the specification for
encapsulating EDI within MIME objects.  This document, of which a new
draft was circulated at the meeting, is expected to go into working
group Last Call by December 10, and to the IESG for processing as a
Proposed Standard by December 24.  The working group again discussed the
need for a paper discussing the use of EDI in an Internet context.  That
document has not made significant progress since the Toronto meeting,
and will be abandoned if significant progress is not made before the
next IETF Plenary.


Hypertext Markup Language Working Group (HTML)

The HTML Working Group met twice.  The first meeting recommended that
(subject to consensus extending to the net) the HTML 1.0 specification
be submitted as Proposed Standard after small edits.  There was a
discussion of how the line end CRLF current practice should be
reconciled with Internet standards as written, and about hooks for the
extension to exotic character sets.  The second meeting discussed higher
level features known as level 3.  Dave Raggett presented an outline of
the features, and several were discussed.  The end of the meeting was
devoted to a discussion of style sheets and formatting instructions with
a presentation of a proposal by Alex Hopmann.


Internet Message Access Protocol Working Group (IMAP)

Since the last meeting, the IMAP Working Group forwarded its basic
protocol and informational documents to the IESG. Those documents were
approved and forwarded to the RFC Editor, where they await publication.
The working group reviewed its status and that of implementations and
decided that its primary work had concluded.


Internet White Pages Requirements Working Group (WHIP)

This group did not meet in San Jose.  The two documents that the group
was supposed to produce are out as Internet-Drafts.  Discussions on the
list seem to indicate that some minor modifications are needed, after
which the documents will be submitted to the IESG.


MHS Directory Services Working Group (MHSDS)

Having progressed all of its core documents to RFC status, MHS-DS
decided to declare victory and disband.  At this final meeting, the
working group also reviewed the status of its Long Bud pilot project.
The status of Long Bud will continue to be tracked through the MHS-DS
distribution list, and it will be managed under the IDS Working Group.

Since the last IETF, the following documents were forwarded to the RFC
Editor for publication as Experimental RFCs with the approval of the
IESG.


   o Use of the Directory to support mapping between X.400 and RFC 822
     Addresses

   o Representing the O/R Address Hierarchy in the Directory Information
     Tree

   o Representing Tables and Subtrees in the Directory

   o MHS use of Directory to support MHS Routing


``Introducing Project Long Bud'' was forwarded for publication as an
informational RFC with IESG approval.



Mail Extensions Working Group (MAILEXT)

Mail Extensions continues to make progress in reviewing and
consolidating changes and clarifications to the mail protocols.  At this
meeting, a further review of the proposal to install a new reply code
turned up several loose ends, including new discussion about utility and
side effects.  Work will continue on the mailing list.  The group
reviewed mechanisms for specifying the language used in MIME body parts
and for SMTP pipelining.  With small alterations, these will be
forwarded for processing as standards track RFCs.

Other work that is not yet ready for further processing includes
definition of a file transfer body part for MIME (similar to the X.400
file transfer body part) and checkpointing and binary options for SMTP.
The working group concluded that the latter two should be implemented
and the implementation tested before the documents are progressed.



Notifications and Acknowledgements Requirements Working Group (NOTARY)

The meeting reviewed several major outstanding proposals, including
multipart/report (ready to be progressed after some additional text is
inserted), delivery reports (need additional work and discussion), and
new status codes.  The latter continues to be a difficult problem, with
the group trying to balance the desire for high precision with the
desire to get something finished within the next few months.  The SMTP
service extension for delivery reports, by contrast, appears to be
progressing smoothly.  The working group is developing strategies for
settling those issues that can be settled and postponing those that
cannot and should begin moving some of its work onto the standards track
before the next IETF.



Quality Information Services Working Group (QUIS)

The QUIS Working Group met for the first time.  It was agreed to set up
a new list called quality-errors@naic.nasa.gov which would be a
repository for errors working group members encounter and explanations
of why they happened.  Those who are currently logging link errors in
information services will submit at least a paragraph summarizing their
observations of common problems.  These notes combined will be written
up and submitted as an Internet-Draft by the next meeting.  This is the
first Internet-Draft the group is tasked to do.



TFTP Extensions Working Group (TFTPEXTS)

This working group was chartered since the last IETF to review several
proposed extensions to the Trivial File Transfer Protocol.  It reached
consensus on the issues on its mailing list before the meeting, reviewed
them at the meeting, and adjourned with a recommendation to progress the
documents to Proposed Standard.