🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ENAG.90Oct1015128@hild.ifi.uio.no>, enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) writes:
> In article <1990Sep30.023741.9306@cbnewsi.att.com> hrs1@cbnewsi.att.com (herman.r.silbiger) writes:
> 
> > CCITT, or rather the ITU, of which CCITT and CCIR are part, is no
> > longer "paper based."  All draft recommendations are produced
> > electronically, using Microsoft Word for Windows, and are published
> > in-house.  Editors and contributors are requested to submit their
> > work in machine-readable form, and they have translaters for more
> > than 20 proprietary formats.  By the end of this year submissions
> > can also be made in ODA conforming to the level 26 DAP (CCITT Rec.
> > T.505).
> 
> > These documents will also be accessible electronically by Study
> > Group members through an interactive service called TIES.  TIES can
> > be accessed through modem dialup and packet networks via the Swiss
> > PTT.  Submission can also be via X.400 links.  The documents will be
> > in Word format, and also ODA by the end of the year.
> 
> > CCITT is pursuing the possibility of electronic distribution, and
> > has actually made a Telecom directory available electronically to
> > purchasers of the paper version.  The electronic version is updated
> > 4 times per year, the paper copy yearly.  The main difficulty with
> > electronic distribution is not technology but obtaining payment for
> > the information.
> 
> I'm confused.  Wednesday September 26th 1990, I attended a seminar
> held at the Telco Research facility at Kjeller outside Oslo, chaired
> by Bente Manns&aring;ker, who is the Norwegian Telco's representative
> at SG VII (X. series, if VII is wrong -- it might be).  I asked her in
> the Q&A period after her lecture whether CCITT used electronic or
> paper documents for internal work, and she replied paper documents.
> Not entirely happy with the answer, I approached her in the break, and
> asked if CCITT disseminated drafts electronically to their members,
> and whether drafts existed in some electronic form, available to the
> respective Working Parties, etc, in general whether the process was
> electronic or paper-based.  Again, she replied that everything was
> essentially paper-based, but that individual WP members often had
> contributions on "some PC format" diskettes.  She was not aware of any
> common format or attempts to define such.
> 
> Now, who should I trust?  I got to know Manns&aring;ker a little, and
> got the feel that she may not know the details of the work she is
> dealing with, but that she does a very good job for the people in the
> Working Parties and other researchers back here that she is
> representing.  We discussed the new X.25 A-bit (for Type-Of-Address/
> Numbering Plan Indicator (TOA/NPI)) and its implication for the
> address block format, including a weak expression of intent in section
> 5.2.1.2.1/X.25 and lack of correspondance with Figure 5/X.25, which is
> identical to Figure 4/X.25.  (Thanks to Kent England for pointing this
> out to me, and giving me the chance to pursue this point.)

Starting this year, the staff of the ITU computing center has been giving
seminars at Study Group meetings describing the electronic document
creation, publishing, and database system.   All members have been invited to
participate.  It is true that this project is just starting, but all the
capabilities I described are in place.  I, and several others I know, have
a login on the TIES system.   While the electronic submission of documents may
be slow to get started, the publishing part is in operation.  General electronic
distribution may be some time in coming, like in the rest of the world, most
participants are not yet equipped to participate in this.

When I was in Geneva 2 weeks ago, I obtained a copy of the template used for
CCITT Recommendations.  I am planning to use it in my next contribution to
Study Group VIII.

One thing that I did not mention in my previous reply is the difference in
approach by the ITU and ISO.  The ITU has a distributed system, with PCs on
LANs and servers.  ISO is installing an IBM mainframe to handle their (SGML-
based) publishing.  ISO has, however, agreed to use MS Word for Windows as
their basic word processor, to enable files for common standards to be
interchanged at that level.  ISO's publishing is based on a very large DTD
which they wrote.

Herman Silbiger
Chairman CCITT Study Group VIII Working Party 4 - Document Architecture
hsilbiger@attmail.com