Applications Area Directors: o Erik Huizer: erik.huizer@surfnet.nl o John Klensin: klensin@infoods.unu.edu Area Summary reported by Erik Huizer/SURFnet This is a short report on the Applications Area, with respect to the Houston IETF meeting November 1993. The Applications Area currently contains the following working groups: o Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) o OSI Directory Services (OSIDS) o TELNET (TELNET) o TELNET TN3270 Enhancements (TN3270E) o X.400 Operations (X400OPS) 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 Internet Anonymous FTP Archives (IAFA) 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 Internet Message Extensions (822EXT), MIME-MHS Interworking (MIMEMHS), and Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP) Working Groups have disbanded since the last meeting. An open meeting of the Applications Area Directorate (APPLES) as well as a MIME Content BOF (MIMECONT) were held in Houston. Applications Area Directorate (APPLES) The goal of the meeting was to present an overview of the applications work that is going on in the Applications and User Services area, possibly identify areas of common interest/overlap and discuss possible coordination. MIME Content BOF (MIMECONT) The reviews covered: o Handling of SGML files over MIME There was a lengthy discussion and a new proposal will be prepared that reflects the comments. o Structuring, beyond the ``mixed,'' ``alternative,'' ``digest,'' and ``parallel'' constructions of RFC 1521, of Multipart MIME messages A new proposal is being prepared. o Models for attribute-value (or name-value) pairs over MIME, such as for personal contact information Discussions will continue using the 822ext mailing list. Formation of a working group in this area is likely. o Mail delivery reports There have been several proposals for specific formats for automatically-generated reports about mail delivery or non-delivery. The review concluded that a working group was needed in this area. o Language directionality The group reviewed a proposal for specifying the relationship between presentation order (e.g., on a screen) and characters in the data stream for languages whose characters were written other than left-to-right. The conclusion was that this capability should not be added to text/plain, but should either use a different "text" subtype or that the information needed should be identified by multiple special character set names. o Macintosh files over MIME The group reviewed the new proposals. Some tuning is still needed. A new draft will be produced and reviewed via an extended Last Call. Internet Message Access Protocol Working Group (IMAP) A total of nineteen agenda items were considered. Considerable progress was made on all fronts. One notable result: on Monday the group agreed that the acronym ``IMAP'' should be remapped to the words ``Internet Message Access Protocol'' to better reflect what the protocol has evolved into. OSI Directory Services Working Group (OSIDS) The OSIDS Working Group will disband and their work items will be partitioned among a number of new groups: o Schema and naming (Sri Sataluri) o Lightweight protocols (Tim Howes) o Indexing DSAs and centroids (Simon Spero) o IP representation in X.500 (Glenn Mannsfield) Detailed proposed charters will be submitted by the proposed chairs and discussed in a wider directory forum (e.g. with WHOIS++ included). The OSIDS mailing list will remain for discussion of umbrella X.500 issues. Document status: o The CLDAP (Connectionless LDAP) document will be submitted as a Proposed Standard. o The RFC 1384 update will be submitted as a Proposed Standard. o Two Internet-Drafts on representing IP information in the DIT will be submitted for approval as Experimental RFCs. o The ``Schema'' subgroup is established, and will submit various documents to replace RFC 1274. TELNET Working Group (TELNET) Unless the charter is revised, the group will conclude after the environment and authentication documents are final. Much of the meeting focused on discussion of the environment Internet-Draft, ``Telnet Environment Option'' and the authentication Internet-Draft, ``Telnet Authentication and Encryption Option.'' Sam Sjogren raised the issue of interoperability testing. The group was receptive, and may try to schedule an event prior to the Seattle meeting. TELNET TN3270 Enhancements Working Group (TN3270E) The current-practices Internet-Draft, ``TN3270 Current Practices,'' was agreed on, but minor typographical errors were found. It will be reposted, and at that time should be forwarded for consideration as an Informational RFC. The LUnames-printer Internet-Draft, ``TN3270 Extensions for LUname and Printer Selection,'' was discussed. The two outstanding issues were resolved and an new draft will be created in a couple of weeks. That should go through a quick internal review. At that point, it should be reviewed by key members of the TELNET Working Group and then forwarded for consideration as an RFC. The question is: should this document go in as an Informational RFC or as a Proposed Standard which gets changed to Informational when the ``TN3270 Enhancements'' Internet-Draft gets published? The ``TN3270 Enhancements'' Internet-Draft went through extensive discussion. All of the known issues were covered and an approach for each was devised. A new Internet-Draft will be created for review by the working group members. It is expected that a consensus can be reached on this document by the end of the year to be published as a Proposed Standard. X.400 Operations Working Group (X400OPS) o Allan Cargille's Internet-Draft, ``Postmaster Convention for X.400 Operations,'' will undergo minor editorial changes scheduled for November 8. o Alf Hansen's Internet-Draft, ``Operational Requirements for X.400 Management Domains in the GO-MHS Community,'' will undergo one more editorial pass with the final version scheduled for November 15. o Claudio Allocchio gave a status report on the DNS mapping table experiment. When the working group concludes, this work will be transferred to the RARE Working Group MSG. o The group reviewed the draft CXII Charter and developed a workplan for addressing this as a new IETF working group. o ADMD=IMX was presented by Allan Cargille. Erik Huizer reiterated that this is a User Services issue that is inappropriate for this IETF. o Erik also reported that the establishment of an ``IOTF'' was agreed in principle by the IESG and the IAB. o With the completion of the above documents, the working group has completed all its goals and will conclude. The mailing list for the group will be kept active to work new items as they may come up.