Subject: Revised consensus proposal - DLSw connect-a-thon

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 95 11:39:36 PDT

Data link switchers:

Based on further discussion regarding point #8 in Scott Barvick's 
proposed test suite, I suggest the following consensus.

1)  The DLSw connect-a-thon is an informal, private test!  
   a)  No results of ANY testing at the connect-a-thon will be 
made public, as we agreed.
   b)  Any two vendors who wish to repeat  successful  tests 
afterward and publicly announce their interoperability are free to 
do so, of course.  
   c)  No statements will be made by anyone regarding any vendor s 
results on any of the tests at the connect-a-thon, positive or 
negative, or their testing or not testing to any of the tests.  
   d)  The connect-a-thon is designed for development staff from 
different vendors to get together and enhance interoperability as 
a service to our customers.  
   e)  The connect-a-thon is NOT designed as a marketing tool in 
any way and the DLSw participants have agreed, at two DLSw 
meetings, not to use it for these purposes.

2)  The main purpose of the connect-a-thon is for testing 
interoperability between different vendor's implementations 
of AIW DLSw v1.0.

3)  The base set of testing has been proposed by Scott Barvick at
connect-a-thon host BayNetworks.  
   a)  This proposed consensus relates only to his point #8, 
        not the rest of his points, which are open for further 
       discussion.
   b)  #8 referred to testing for backward compatibility 
       with pre-v1.0 versions of DLSw (which are related
       to RFC 1434).

4)  The AIW DLSw RIG has decided that backward compatibility is 
not part of the v1.0 standard.

5)  Several DLSw participants have customers using a product 
called DSLw which is based on a pre-v1.0 version of DLSw, and 
have included an interoperability feature in their v1.0 
DLSw product, and some of these participants wish to test whether 
company A's v1.0 DLSw product can operate with 
company B's pre-v1.0 DSLw product.

6) Therefore, such 'pre-v1.0 interoperability' testing:
   a) will be allowed at the DLSw connect-a-thon
   b) will not be part of the standard base or option test suite 
   c) will not be scheduled in the time allotted for such testing
      but instead in remaining time allotted for 
      other optional testing (either late in each day or at the
      end of the week, as decided by the group)
   d) will not be expected of any vendor participating in the 
      connect-a-thon

7)  The test will be developed by the parties interested in such 
testing and no other vendors need to contribute to it.

8)  The test items will be divided into three categories:
   a)  Standard base tests - tests for the base elements of DLSw v1.0
   b)  Standard optional tests - tests for the optional elements
       such as NetBIOS support
   c)  Other optional tests - other tests the participants may
       wish to perform, such as interoperability with pre-v1.0 DLSw

Please post if you have significant disagreement with this proposed
consensus.  If we do not receive such postings in the next few days,
I request that Scott Barvick reconfigure his original proposal to
divide his proposed testing into the three proposed categories
early next week.

Regards,

Louise Herndon Wells

---

From: Dave Lowry <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 95 13:43:53 PDT

Louise,

Cisco is in agreement as long as there is no description of the "other
optional tests". Scott and whoever chooses to help him should propose
test suites for the first two testing categories. The third is left
blank. It is there to allow the option for unspecified optional non-standard
testing. There should not be any description of what is to be tested.
This leaves vendors free to test whatever they want in the time
allotted for "other optional tests". What I have in mind is that maybe
others will want to test interoperability with Cisco's proposed
enhancements or any other vendor's enhancements. Maybe not. But let's 
leave the door open for any optional testing any 2 vendor's agree on.

Dave

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From: [email-masked] (Scott Barvick)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 17:39:26 -0400 (EDT)

In response to the only response to Louise's proposal,  I have
to say that I still see the value in documenting what I perceive
to be a major interest to the Connectathon participants in the
"other optional tests" section.  We cannot document or necessarily
prepare for many of the optional tests which will arise, but I think
tests that have significant interest and preparation requirements
should be documented.  

In the interests of closing this discussion once and for all, if
I am the only one who feels this way, or there is no way we
will reach concensus on the issue with it in, in a few days I will 
submit a new proposal with it omitted and the understanding that all
interested vendors will prepare for 1434 interoperability testing
during the free periods.

Scott

---

From: rich livingston <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 95 0:28:57 PDT

Scott,

Please allow me to explain why documenting backwards compatibility of 
non-standard DLSw is BAD-THING for potential DLSw customers and the future
of the standard itself.

Several vendors will support extensions to DLSw and will lobby for these 
features to become part of DLSw Version 2.0.  These features should be 
ratified soley on technological merit.

Now, look ahead to Version 2 inter-operability testing.  Who's Version
1.0 extesions are we going to "document" for our backwards compatibility
testing?  In fact, the knowledge that there will be interoperability tests 
which go beyond *DLSw Version 1.0* will put non-technical factors into the 
consideration of whose extensions are adopted.  

Now I'll go back to my regularly scheduled non-standard programming ;-), -rich