CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Dana Sitzler/Merit NISI Minutes Agenda Current Meeting Agenda: o Recap of last meeting o Draft document o Discussion: Relationship between NIC's/Cooperative Agreements Minutes: The session began with a recap of the last NISI meeting which included discussions about where we are today in terms of network information services. A draft document summarizing these discussions will be sent to the NISI mailing list prior to the next meeting. The session then moved into a new discussion area namely how do we propose that NICs work together to provide information services to the internet community. Discussion: o How should NICs work together? o What kind of cooperative agreements can we suggest? The idea is that NISI (or the IETF) could ``encourage'' NICs to ``formally'' work together for the benefit of network users -- in much the same way people are encouraged to follow the technical specifications to `play' in the internet. The discussion then moved onto; what are the rules that NICs should follow? The result of this discussion was a set of suggested guidelines for NICs: o WILL ANSWER TO BEST OF ABILITY BEFORE PASSING OFF o NIC PHONE SHALL ALWAYS BE ANSWERED o WILL PROVIDE AN INDEX OF SERVICES o WILL PROVIDE REFERRAL FILES o NIC'S SHOULD KEEP OTHER NIC'S INFORMED OF ``SPECIALTIES'' o TRY TO PUT INFORMATION ON-LINE AND PROVIDE; 1 - ACCESS - UPDATE - ANNOUNCEMENTS o PARTICIPATE IN NIC FORUM AND PLAY BY RULES o MAKE INFO AS WIDELY AVAILABLE AS POSSIBLE (COPYRIGHT TO MAINTAIN INTEGRITY OF INFORMATION, BUT STRIVE TO ENCOURAGE DISTRIBUTION -- NOT NECESSARILY INTENDED TO IMPLY ``FREE'') o ACKNOWLEDGE INFO SOURCE (THEREFORE, NOT LIABLE) o DON'T MAKE UP ANSWERS o OBLIGATED TO ANSWER? (IN SOME WAY) While discussing these guidelines, other ideas were generated about ways of implementing them and general suggestions for improving the ability of NICs to know about each other and to work together. These ideas included: o List of NIC's o Index of Services o Referral Contacts o NIC Forum (mailing list) o Interface to encourage electronic use, in place of paper o Database -- pull out info, put in another database for your system o Some kind of way to do referrals o Programs to access NIC's o NICs should implement a common address name such as (NIC@DOMAIN) to give users a place to start The group decided to publish the suggested guidelines as an FYI-RFC. The guidelines will be further developed, put into RFC format, and a draft will be distributed to the NISI mailing list before the next IETF meeting. Follow-up actions: Dana Create a NIC Forum Mailing List -- Send draft document (of last meeting) -- Send recommended guidelines list Gary Create a Template Mike Bitnic Listserv Joyce Edit/provide input for submission of RFC Others Send ``other projects'' (Building blocks) Attendees 2 Carol Farnham carolf@mcescher.unl.edu Russell Hobby rdhobby@ucdavis.edu Michael Hrybyk mwh@educom.edu Erik Huizer huizer@surfnet.nl Clifford Lynch lynch@postgres.berkeley.edu Gary Malkin gmalkin@ftp.com Berlin Moore prepnet@andrew.cmu.edu Fred Ostapik ostapik@nisc.sri.com Craig Partridge craig@nnsc.nsf.net Cecilia Preston ceal@asylum.sf.ca.us Joyce K. Reynolds jkrey@venera.isi.edu Mark Seger seger@mjs1/ogo.dec.com Jim Sheridan jsherida@ibm.com Dana Sitzler dds@merit.edu Allen Sturtevant sturtevant@ccc.nmfecc.gov 3