bzs%bostonu.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa (Barry Shein) (12/16/85)
There was some discussion here citing frustration with the unavailability of higher level specs for the XNS protocols. I had the opportunity last year to sit around at PARC and this subject came up. Essentially the answer is that yes, they are running various high level protocols internally at Xerox. The reason the world has not seen the specs was that they are not very happy with many of the details, much of it was experimental and they are nervous about allowing these things to become de facto standards we will all be saddled with by releasing the specs. Exactly what is being done to correct this situation wasn't outlined to me but the impression I got was they were concerned, agreed it is a very fundamental problem and wished they could get it behind them. Not much comfort, but at least my impression is that the problem is a human one, not 'an evil Brand X empire' being overly proprietary about things (tho Xerox does tend towards that unfortunately as do most large companies.) Hopefully there has been some progress in this arena since then, someone from Xerox wish to elaborate? -Barry Shein, Boston University