CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_ Reported by Chris Weider/Merit Minutes of the Integration of Internet Information Resources Working Group (IIIR) Acknowledgements Many thanks to Kevin Gamiel for taking notes for these minutes during the second session. Prologue IIIR was originally scheduled for only one session, on the evening of the 14th. However, Tim Berners-Lee, author of the HTML Internet-Draft, would have been unable to attend, so an additional session was added on the 13th to discuss the document. HTML Internet-Draft The HTML Internet-Draft describes current practice for the Hypertext Markup Language used in the World Wide Web. As such, it will be submitted for publication as an Informational RFC as soon as possible. There are two other protocols used in the Web which will be brought into the Internet standards track: HTML-2, and the Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP). Previous Minutes No changes were suggested. Vision Document Chris Weider gave a brief overview of the vision paper. Jill Foster wanted an additional layer of integration on top of the architecture by having a single client that speaks all the information service protocols. Mitra indicated a need for a set of shared, common libraries for each server to use for URN ! URL access. These suggestions will be incorporated into a future version of the paper. 1 Transponder Document Chris Weider gave an overview of the transponder document. The final consensus of the working group was to consider the transponder document as a ``call to arms'' to start thinking about ways to make maintenance of the URN ! URL infrastructure automatic. Taxonomy Document Chris Weider and Peter Deutsch were not able to complete the taxonomy document. However, Cliff Neuman pointed out that there were several recently published papers that cover most of the ground of the taxonomy document, and that they would serve as well. Cliff will post references to those papers to the mailing list and the taxonomy document will be removed from the list of goals and milestones. Gopher There were still concerns that RFC 1436 documenting the base Gopher protocol did not adequately reflect current operational practice. Chris Weider took an action item to talk to the authors and resolve the issue by the end of August. Prospero Cliff Neuman gave a talk on Prospero and outlined how it might be used to integrate disparate information services on the Internet. IIIR Format Types Mitra stated that there needs to be a set of data/format type specifiers for resources that is consistent across all the NIDR systems. Historically each system has created its own format specifiers, which impedes inter-operability. The MIME content type specification process is now ``open'' for additions, so a consistent set can now be registered. Mark McCahill has agreed to register the Gopher types in MIME, and that will serve as a basis for the IIIR set. An earlier BOF on datatypes resulted in the formation of a mailing list designed to discuss this issue; the list is ietf-types@cs.utk.edu. At this writing the activation of the list has not yet been announced. 2 Data Elements Much concern was expressed by members of the working group that a paper on data elements for metainformation transfer had not been released. A small working group composed of librarians and IETFers are working on it, but there was also concern that the process of creating the document was not open. Peter Deutsch noted that in many cases current practice is being accepted over architecting a working solution. Chris Weider agreed that a draft of the paper would be released to the working group as soon as it was available. Quality Assurance Mitra gave a brief talk on his concerns about the quality (or lack thereof) of pointer maintenance, and noted that if a given retrieval request fails, that it is impossible to determine where it has failed. Chris Weider took an action item to submit a request for volunteers to write a paper on technical quality assurance. Z39.50 Jim Fullton mentioned that a paper by Cliff Lynch on Z39.50 over TCP/IP will be submitted for consideration as an Informational RFC in time for Houston. Brewster Kahle, John Kunze, and Jim Fullton agreed to write a paper on the use of Z39.50 in information systems. Gopher+ Time expired before Gopher+ could be discussed, but will be taken to the list. Of particular concern is that the Gopher+ extensions allow interoperability with other information systems deployed on the Internet. Attendees Luc Boulianne lucb@cs.mcgill.ca Jodi-Ann Chu jodi@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu James Conklin jbc@bitnic.educom.edu Peter Deutsch peterd@bunyip.com Reinhard Doelz embnet@comp.bioz.unibas.ch Jill Foster Jill.Foster@newcastle.ac.uk Jim Fullton fullton@cnidr.org Kevin Gamiel kgamiel@cnidr.org Ben Geerlings ben.geerlings@surfnet.nl Anders Gillner awg@sunet.se 3 Rune Hjelsvold Rune.Hjelsvold@idt.unit.no Xander Jansen xander.jansen@surfnet.nl Olle Jarnefors ojarnef@admin.kth.se Michael Khalandovsky mlk@ftp.com Pekka Kytolaakso pekka.kytolaakso@csc.fi April Marine april@atlas.arc.nasa.gov John Martin John.Martin@newcastle.ac.uk Mitra mitra@pandora.sf.ca.us Clifford Neuman bcn@isi.edu Lisa Nielsen lisa@hawaii.edu Lars-Gunnar Olsson Lars-Gunnar.Olsson@data.slu.se Joyce K. Reynolds jkrey@isi.edu Ulla Sandberg ulla@kiera.ericsson.se Rickard Schoultz schoultz@admin.kth.se Patricia Smith psmith@merit.edu Karen Sollins sollins@lcs.mit.edu Vladimir Sukonnik sukonnik@process.com Peter Svanberg psv@nada.kth.se Guido van Rossum guido@cwi.nl Ton Verschuren Ton.Verschuren@SURFnet.nl Lea Viljanen Lea.Viljanen@helsinki.fi Chris Weider clw@merit.edu 4