Re: [802SEC] Questions on Disanding 802.4
Mat-
By the system set up by Don Loughry long ago, there is a system of
several states for an 802 Working Group:
- Study
Group (pre-PAR, activity approved by the EC, seat at EC but no
vote)
- Active
(Group has PAR and/or active standards, meets at least every
Plenary,
Chair
is a voting member of the EC)
-
Hibernation (Group has active standards but no open PARs or active Study
Groups,
WG
does not regularly meet at Plenaries
Chair
is aged out of voting at EC (This is a change from the original)
"List
of Experts" is maintained via a reflector.
Chair
and experts reactivate when revision.)
-
Disbanded (Standards have all been "Withdrawn". WG no longer
exists,
No
representative at the EC.
Standards
only exist in withdrawn state.
No
requirements for maintenance or revision.)
The system as currently constituted has not been adjusted for the recent
changes at the SA for "Stabilized Standards", a system where
standards no longer have any maintenance requirements from the Sponsor
but remain active.
When put in place, it was felt that the above was a reasonable system.
Are you saying otherwise?
Are you proposing to change it?
Ifso, what do you propose?
Geoff
At 08:08 PM 8/5/2004 -0700, Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA) wrote:
Paul,
It sounds like everything is handled informally since no
standard actually exists right now. What benefit does a hibernating
WG provide to the current situation? It's primary function in my
mind it to provide a core of experts to field questions on a
standard. If it does not perform that function, then what is the
point of keeping it around? I'm sympathetic to that fact that there
still seems to be a user base, but the user base is not using the WG
facility. So it does not seem to fill a purpose. Am I missing
something?
Thanks,
Mat
Matthew Sherman, PhD
Senior Member Technical Staff
BAE SYSTEMS, CNIR
Office: +1 973.633.6344
email: matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Eastman
[mailto:paul@rfnetworks.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 1:37 PM
To: Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA)
Cc: STDS-802-SEC@listserv.ieee.org;
paul.nikolich@ATT.NET
Subject: Re: Questions on Disanding 802.4
Sherman, Matthew J. (US SSA) wrote:
>Dear Paul,
>
>I'm trying to determine how to vote on this issue.
I was hoping you can help me with some questions.
>
>1) Can you provide a list of the "core of
experts" that this group maintains to resolve technical issues
regarding 802.4 standards?
>
Since our standard was withdrawn in 2001 and our
representation in the
EC was terminated, I did not deem it necessary to continue
active
polling of the "core of expertise". Should
it be necessary, I could
probably resurrect 50% or more of the "core of
expertise" on very short
notice.
>2) When was the last time a formal inquiry or
request for interpretation was made of this group?
>
The 802.4 standard was very well written. The last
action of the 802.4
group was to suggest that its 802.4L study group reform as
802.11.
There were no problems, resolved or otherwise, with
the standard
published jointly as ISO/IEC 8802-4 (ANSI/IEEE Std. 802.4)
Token Passing
Bus 1990
>3) How often do you receive informal inquiries
concerning 802.4?
>
I personally have continued to receive a couple of inquiries
a year,
mostly from academic sources. In the latest inquiry we
even
investigated and gave a rough order of magnitude quote on
the
resurrection of both MAC and PHY layers for a Department of
Homeland
Security application.
>4) Off hand, can you identify any specific users
of the technology? How big (in terms of number of nodes) do you
estimate the total current deployment is?
>
There is still a number of places where the carrier band
version of
802.4 is being used. Most of the equipment is being
shipped into Japan
through Marubun, an importing company, and to various
companies in
India. There is even some product being sold to Moore
Products, a
Seimens company located in Pennsylvania. Specifically,
Hitachi,
Furukawa Electric, Yokagawa and possibly Toyota are Japanese
companies
with active systems
>5) What is the likelihood of any new nodes being
added?
>
The answers to item 4 indicate where additional nodes are
still being added.
>6) Is anyone actually building equipment, as
opposed to just using equipment that is still around?
>
Relcom, Maris Graube's company (Maris was the first chair of
the 802
EC), is still manufacturing many nodes per year for the
carrierband PHY.
My company, RF Networks, is still capable but not
manufacturing nodes
for the broadband PHY.
>Thanks in advance for any answers you can provide.
Finally, in the quote Paul Nikolich provided, what did you mean by
"old standards should have the right to protect their
legacy"? I'm not sure understand what you mean by this.
>
A lot of work was done to produce an extremely stable
standard, both MAC
and PHY. Should some future work decide to do some
work using a token
bus architecture, I would hope that wheels would not be
reinvented and
that the pioneers of the work would get some
acknowledgment.
>Best Regards,
>
>Mat
>
>
>
>
>
>Matthew Sherman, PhD
>Senior Member Technical Staff
>BAE SYSTEMS, CNIR
>Office: +1 973.633.6344
>email: matthew.sherman@baesystems.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
==================================================
Paul Eastman
RF Networks, Inc.
10201 N. 21st Avenue, Unit 9
Phoenix, AZ 85021
(602) 861-3652
Fax: (602) 861-0251
"Worrying about what's right is always more
important than worrying about who's right."
==================================================
----------
This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.
----------
This email is sent from the 802 Executive Committee email reflector. This list is maintained by Listserv.