Re: PAR NUMBERING FOR 802 STANDARDS

[Tony Jeffree <tony@jeffree.co.uk>]

Jim:

The document Bill refers to is at:

	ftp://p8021:-go_wildcats@p8021.hep.net/8021/ddocs98/8021-index-26mar98.pdf

However, I am not sure that either what it says or what is stated below
helps terribly much.  I would absolutely agree with Bill that we must ditch
this phoney upper/lower case distinction - it is far too esoteric for the
average reader to handle, and causes nothing but confusion even within the
group of people that ought to know what it means.  The way to distinguish
between a standard, a supplement or a revision ought to be terribly easy
(and it usually is) - you look at the cover & the title says "Standard",
"Supplement" or "Revision".

Regards,
Tony

At 10:39 05/05/99 -0500, Bill Lidinsky wrote:
>Jim:
>
>My comments on your note on the numbering of standards.
>
>			Bill
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Jim Carlo wrote:
>> 
>> I owed NesCom a process for PAR numbering within 802. I did a brief
search and
>> could not find this written down, so I generated the following note. Does
>> anyone know if this is contained elsewhere within 802?
>
>Hal Keen may have described 802.1 numbering of standards (not PARs) in a
>document that he generated some years ago.  Tony Jeffree more recently
>incorporated some of Hal's stuff into another document that is on the
>802.1 ftp site -- not sure where within the ftp site.
>
>> 
>> Comments on the Policy Below:
>> 
>> PAR Numbering for 802
>> 
>> 1) Standard 802 provides the basic architecture for 802 standards. As such,
>> there is no number or letter suffix. There is currently a revision PAR,
P802Rev
>> that is updating this standard.
>> 
>> 2) Working Groups will utilize PAR numbers as 802.nx where:
>> n - the number assigned to the Working Group
>> x - a lower case letter assigned to each supplement or corrigenda.
>> Notes:
>> 2.1 -After x goes to z, the next PAR is 802.naa, 802.nab, etc.
>> 2.2 -In general, the base working group standard, 802.n eventually
includes all
>> supplements and corrigenda.
>> 2.3 -Revisions are numbered as 802.nRevm, where m is the revision update
>> sequence number. In some cases, a Revision is started as a supplement, then
>> becomes a revision, so the lower case letter holds.
>
>The above is confusing in its description.  An example would help.
>
>> 
>> 3) In the case of 802.1, which is for higher layer protocols above the
MAC, the
>> PAR numbering is 802.1y or 802.1Y, where:
>> y - is a lower case letter assigned to a supplement or corrigenda or
>> Y - is an upper case letter assigned to a stand-alone standard that is
>> applicable to a higher level protocol and is not meant to be integrated
into
>> the base standard, 802.1.
>
>I don't know whether you are talking about just the future or both the
>past and future, but after much experience with the upper/lower case
>scheme, I can only recommend in the STRONGEST terms that you delete item
>3).  Using upper/lower case as we have and as you describe above has
>resulted in continual confusion.  I have absolutely no reason to believe
>that it will not continue to do so in the future.
>
>> 
>> Notes:
>> 3.1 -Both a small letter and capital letter are not used for the same
>> character.
>
>I don't know what this means.  802.1 has avoided using an upper case
>letter for one standard and the same letter in lower case for another
>supplement standard.  I can only imagine with horror what would have
>happened if we had.
>
>> 3.2 -This small and capital letter use can be confusing, and should not be
>> depended upon to designate a standard or supplement, especially since some
>> computer type fonts do not distinguish between capitalization.
>
>I suggest that you change the first clause above to read: 
>    "3.2 -This small and capital letter use has been and continues 
>     to be VERY confusing, ..." 

>This is the real situation.  Your wording waters down the problem.
>
>> 
>> 4) In some cases, where the project will be a supplement of 802.1Y, but the
>> project deals totally with a single MAC protocol, n, the project number is
>> 802.nx, as defined in the relevant MAC working group.
>> 
>> Jim Carlo(jcarlo@ti.com) Cellular:1-214-693-1776  Voice&FAX
Mail:1-214-853-5274
>> TI Fellow, Networking Standards at Texas Instruments
>> Chair, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 Telecom and Info Exchange Between Systems
>> Chair, IEEE 802 LAN MAN Standards Committee
>