Re: TML Service Primitive Update

Joel,

I think the problem you raised has been solved in this update.  The following text in Section 1 of the draft has quite clearly stated the purpose of the draft, which I thing meet your thoughts quite well: 
---------
   The purpose of this document is to specify the services that various 
   TMLs must provide for ForCES PL layer. The TML services are 
   represented by a set of TML service primitives and associated TML 
   properties (TML attributes, etc).  
    
   Note that this document specifies TML services more at a semantic 
   level, i.e., it does not try to specify details on how the defined 
   TML services shall be implemented. Different Operating System 
   platforms that PL and TML may rely on to be developed may have 
   different programming methods, process techniques, data structures, 
   etc for realizing the set of TML services. As a result, TML interface 
   APIs constructed according to this document may vary in some way. In 
   this condition, one PL portable to various TMLs actually means the PL 
   must provide various interface drivers for different TMLs, while 
   keeping the PL kernel the same for the TML operations. 
--------

I suppose you may be in someway stimulated by the following text that is also in Section 1 of the draft: 
--------
  The ForCES protocol [ForCES-PL] document defines the specifications 
   for PL, while TMLs of different transport media types are to be 
   defined by individual IETF documents. A ForCES PL implementation must 
   be portable across all TMLs. It is feasible that the implementers of 
   TML and PL may be from different organizations. As a result, services 
   TML provides to PL must be specified in a standardizing way.  
--------

especially by the sentence "A ForCES PL implementation must 
 be portable across all TMLs. It is feasible that the implementers of 
 TML and PL may be from different organizations." 

Note that the first half of the sentence is quoted from the ForCES protocol specification, while the last half of the sentence only states "it is feasible", rather than to state that "it is a goal of the draft ...".   The draft has not stated this as a goal. 

To remove possible ambiguity, I agree to remove the sentence. 

How about others (also the authors) thoughts?

Thanks,
Weiming

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: TML Service Primitive Update


> I think I have a philosophical difference with the authors of the TML 
> Service primitives draft as to the purpose of the draft.
> 
> I do not believe, as the draft states, that it is a goal of the draft 
> to provide sufficient specification to allow PL implementations from 
> one vendor to work with TML implementations from another vendor.
> 
> My view of the TML service primitives (which I asked for quite 
> vociferously) is that they define two things:
> The services that the PL definition can assume from the TML, so taht 
> we can define the PL cleanly;
> The services any TML must provide to the TML so that we can verify 
> that a TML proposal meets the needs.
> (Those two ought to be the same.)
> 
> While people may eventually be able to get protocol stacks from other 
> vendors, and even parts of stacks, internal interfaces and internal 
> interface consistency are not our goal.
> 
> I believe that this primarily affects the introductory material, and 
> not the substance of the document.  But it affects why the rest of 
> the document is now reasonable.
> 
> Yours,
> Joel M. Halpern
> 
> At 10:39 PM 11/3/2006, Weiming Wang wrote:
> >Dear Chairs and ForCES participants,
> >
> >Attached is the updated TML Service primtive draft that we are going 
> >to submit soon after the meeting. The authors are sorry to have 
> >missed the submision deadline before the meeting. We just have had 
> >some extra discussions among the authors after the update was first 
> >made before the deadline, which delayed our schedule a little.
> >
> >The update is mainly based on discussions on the ForCES list made 
> >for TML SP. Some key changes are:
> >1. removed all XML descriptions for TML.
> >2. mostly rewrote the TML events part
> >3. modified the SP format and the parameters.
> >
> >More comments from list are very much appreciated before we could 
> >submit it soon after the meeting.
> >
> >Thanks a lot.
> >
> >Weiming