RE: quick notes from the Internet Fax meeting.

My comments on the summary enclosed.

> Claudio reported that a formal appeal to the IESG has been 
> submitted by Larry Masinter about the problems he sees inside 
> the currently available interoperability, licensing reports 
> and the tiff-fx file format specification. 

My appeal was specifically to the decision of the chair(s)
that the current interoperability report was adequate
for the advancement of the document to Draft Standard.
At the Atlanta meeting, I noted that I had gotten no
response from the chairs or the area director to my
email messages.

> Before going to 
> details about these concerns, Claudio reminded the WG that at 
> the London IETF, after a consultation between the TIFF-FX 
> editors, the WG (present and past) Chairs and the IAB, it was 
> decided that a single image/tiff MIME type was inappropriate, 
> and thus we should correct this error, registering two 
> separate type. This also should be considered when reading 
> the early documents about interoperability and file format, 
> as they were referring to image/tiff also when the format was 
> actually image/tiff-fx. Larry noted that this is anyhow a 
> possible source of confusion; comments were however made by 
> people who took part into that event that, even if the name 
> was image/tiff, they were actually testing image/tiff-fx 
> features. Larry objected again that some of the inside 
> specification were meanwhile changed, but it was noted that 
> this might eventually require some testing about these 
> specific features, and not invalidate the whole results.

This part of the summary of the working group meeting is
confusing; where you say "Larry noted" and "Larry objected"
above, this is not something that happened in Atlanta, just
that you talked about in Atlanta. I'm not sure you mentioned 
"London" or just "previous meetings", but, for what it's worth,
the previous meeting in Minneapolis:
http://www.imc.org/ietf-fax/mail-archive/msg01179.html
we discussed both renewed testing for the MIME
type testing and TIFF-FX testing. As far as a meeting
summary for Atlanta goes, you might just note that
you reviewed the current status as determined by
previous meetings.

> After this, Rob Buckley presented (see slides) (hoping you 
> get the content of the tables!!! I had some problems with 
> reading them!) 

Rob's slides aren't attached to your message or to any other
currently in the email archive.

> a compendium summary driven out from the 2 
> available interop tests performed. He reported that is all 
> cases listed as "one implementation" this means "one reader 
> and one writer". The tables reveal that there are a very 
> limited number of cases (2 only) where there is only support 
> by one implementer. Thus he proposed that these features are 
> dropped from the tiff-fx specification (unless meanwhile it 
> is reported that an additional implementation is available 
> for them). The WG expressed consensus on this removal from 
> the specification. 

I think the question is whether "one reader and one writer"
counts as "multiple independent interoperable implementations".
I think this may be an important issue. If there are
implementations that are only a reader, is that "1/2" in
the summary or 1?

> Larry then presented (see his slides) the 
> objections which he is moving to the current reports. 

I think "raising about" is more accurate than
"moving to" since the new objections are not
identical, but mainly discuss different problems
with the new report.

The summary below is disjointed and seems to miss
some of the key points and mischaracterize point 8
("Proposal for Interoperability") as an "objection".
Please refer to actual slides used
http://www.imc.org/ietf-fax/mail-archive/pdf00009.pdf

Slides 2-7 list the objections:
* wrong document
* latest report doesn't document interoperability
* implementations not independent
  same company or same source
* implementations not independent
  "replaceable components"
* no evidence of IPR licensing
* many features have insufficient implementations listed

> The WG 
> asked if it is possible to have the original appeal Larry 
> sent to the IESG, but he replied that the process does not 
> require the WG to be involved in this, as it regards the IESG 
> and WG chairs only. 

re "it regards the IESG and WG chairs only":
The responsibility for documenting interoperability
is for the WG chairs, who may or may not choose to
involve the WG. I did not say I had any objection to
sharing this with the WG, I said it was the choice
of the WG chairs.

> However Claudio reported that what's 
> presented in Larry's slides reflect what's in the submitted 
> complaint. During the presentation Ned, Dave and others 
> objected about some points. 

I think there were questions raised here, just as
there were questions raised about Rob's presentation.

> In particular about the request 
> that it should be an Internet Fax specific 
> product/implementation which is used to test the file format, 
> while it seems that in some cases a file reader/write was 
> used, externally from an i-fax implementation. As it is a 
> "file format" we should test the file format, and this can be 
> done with specific file tools like readers and writers, no 
> matter if these are then the same being implemented inside 
> i-fax implementation. 

I believe I noted this myself as an area of disagreement
in slide 5, but I don't think there was an objection
at the meeting.

> Larry objected that also the files used 
> are not available, to see what was actually tested. 

In Slide 8, I suggested a proposal for moving forward,
but this was not an "objection".


> James 
> Rafferty reminded that the tiff-fx files for all the profiles 
> are available since (1998?) at the ITU repository, and those 
> were the files being used, as official benchmarks.

I don't think James said anything about the "files
being used as official benchmarks". James reminded
us that some files are available at the ITU repository.
I don't know what it means to be an "official benchmark".

> Larry objected also that the implementation shown are not 
> indipendent one, and they might derive from the same public 
> domain or licensed source code. There were again 
> counter-objections that this is not to be proven by the WG, 
> but it enough for us to trust the declaration of the 
> participants in the interop tests, where they report 
> indipendent implementations. 

In slide 4, I said that the latest report includes
many implementations from the same company with
no assertion of independence, and there are overlaps
between the previous report and the latest report.

There were no 'counter-objections' raised at the
meeting in Atlanta.

> Ned also reminded that the 
> current tiff-fx specification is not YET on the IESG table, 
> thus we are still considering updates to it, especially after 
> we agreed some features should be removed. 

As a side note: This status is significantly different
than what was previously reported by the working group
chairs; the previous ITU-T letter is incorrect, since
the document must again go through IETF last call, and
it is not inappropriate to comment on the document
itself.

> As last rework 
> Larry reported that in his opinion the exercise of 
> unrestricted licensing was not described appropriately. 

I don't understand this sentence. I don't know what
"at last rework" means, and I don't know what
"unrestricted licensing" is. In slide 6, I said
there was evidence that licensing is required and
there were no statements of licensing.

> Tamura-san replied that he is currently collecting the 
> declaration/statement and this will be made available as soon 
> as it is ready.

> As final point Claudio suggested that the WG chairs prepare 
> an additional accompanying document for the interop document 
> set, including the matrix of supported and test features etc. 
> The WG supported the proposal. Back again on the ML.
> 
> Ned then presented the road-map to progress the work (see his 
> message on the mailing list) and the WG agreed on it.

IETF meeting summaries do not need to be sequential
about what got said when, but the report you gave
takes material from the meeting out of order, but
uses words that make it sound like they were in
a particular order.