pc@hillside.co.uk (Peter Collinson) (06/26/91)
Submitted-by: pc@hillside.co.uk (Peter Collinson) USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee Stephen R. Walli <stephe@usenix.org>, Report Editor Report on P1224: X.400 API Steve Trus <trus@osi.ncsl.nist.gov> reports on the April 15-19, 1991 meeting in Chicago, IL: Introduction P1224 is the IEEE working group standardizing an application program interface (API) for X.400 and also for a companion, OSI Object Management (OM). The work will result in two documents. Interfaces developed by the X.400 API Association and X/Open have provided the basis for the standards. The X.400 API consists of two parts: an application interface and a gateway interface. Both of these are based on the 1988 CCITT X.400 Series of Recommendations. The P1224 working group has the following officers: - Steve Trus, Chairman (NIST) - Tim Carter, Vice Chairman (IBM) - Iain Devine, Technical Editor, Secretary (X/Open) The Chicago meeting was very productive for the P1224 working group. We have been gaining momentum over the past three meetings, and are well under way to producing an IEEE standard. The goal of the group is to have a draft of the X.400 API and the Object Management APIs by the July meeting, and to ballot the documents after the October meeting. Report At the Chicago meeting the group continued modifying the base documents to produce the draft API documents for ballot. This work includes: 1. editing the documents to meet the style and format requirements of the IEEE, 2. adding a language independent specification of the interfaces to the documents, and 3. developing the required conformance test assertions. The language independent specification of the Object Management API is complete, and the technical editor has made most of the required style changes. These changes will be complete and the language independent specification will be incorporated into the document by the July meeting. Work on the style modifications to the X.400 document will also be complete by the July meeting. The X.400 language independent specification should be complete and incorporated at this time. The group spent most of the week developing the required test methods for the Object Management Specification. A representative of the Test Methods working group (POSIX.3) assisted us with this development. Members of the group agreed to develop test methods for functions assigned to them by the next meeting. This task will need to be completed before the complete ballot of the document. Balloting Plans We discussed balloting plans and we would like to begin balloting the Object Management Specification and the X.400 API in October. These ballots would not include the test methods, and balloting cannot complete without them. We are developing the list of people who will be invited to ballot these documents, along with the IEEE formed balloting group. This list will include the X.400 API Association, X/Open Limited, the NIST X.400 Workshop, and the Electronic Mail Association. PAR Restructuring The original Project Authorization Request (PAR) for the P1224 group was written when the baseline document contained an X.400 gateway API and the related OSI Object Management specification. Currently, the X.400 API document contains the user agent interfaces, the gateway interfaces. The OSI Object Management specification is contained in a separate document. To accommodate these changes a revised PAR was written at the January meeting for the X.400 API, and a new PAR was written for the OSI Object Management specification. These PARs were approved by the IEEE TCOS SEC at this meeting. In Closing ... P1224 is making good progress. Homework assignments were delegated at the Chicago meeting to be completed by the Santa Clara meeting. The primary focus of the Santa Clara meeting will be to review the Draft X.400 and Object Management APIs, and to continue working on test methods for the interfaces. Volume-Number: Volume 24, Number 21