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Re: WG Review: Centralized Conferencing (xcon)

2003-08-20 10:22:40
As a prospective supplier of SIP-based services, I am very interested in seeing 
SIP-based definitions for the support of a wide range of conferencing tools 
ranging from voice/video to IM and mixtures that might include a participant 
with only a phone and a fax machine. This is not to say that I would reject 
other protocol bases for such service but rather to say that we have a 
significant investment in SIP-based services and would like to see them 
expanded in standard ways so as to encourage interworking among parties 
offering such services. 

I leave it to the IESG and other interested parties to figure out how best to 
achieve that objective. Perhaps a SIP-oriented WG is the appropriate vehicle, 
recognizing that what ever procedures are invented, rooted in the SIP system, 
might well have counterparts in other signalling enviroments and could 
therefore be re-incarnated in them. Whether that would confer interworking 
between the SIP and non-SIP systems is beyond my ability to predict. 

Vint

 At 03:29 PM 8/19/2003 -0700, Marshall Rose wrote:
jon - sorry for the delay in replying.

fundamentally, i think it comes down to accuracy in labelling. if the sip
folks want to do conferencing, then they should have a working group to do
that. however, the charter for that working group should not imply that the
scope of the working group is anything beyond sip.

a reasonable person reading the charter would conclude that the scope of the
working group is somewhat more generic than sip.

if the goal for this working group is to be generic, then the charter is
likely unacceptable since it assumes "facts not entered into evidence",
i.e., it is sip-centric, and there is a fair body of deployed work that
manages to do conferencing very well without using that acronym. if that is
not the intention, then  i suggest that the working group be called
something like sipxcon to avoid any confusion.

as to whether the working group belongs in apps or tsv, a generic
conferencing working group clearly belongs in apps. however, a sip-specific
working group can probably comfortably reside in either.

/mtr

Vint Cerf
SVP Architecture & Technology
MCI
22001 Loudoun County Parkway, F2-4115
Ashburn, VA 20147
703 886 1690 (v806 1690)
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