Re: PAR NUMBERING FOR 802 STANDARDS

[Bill Lidinsky <lidinsky@hep.net>]

Jim:

My comments on your note on the numbering of standards.

			Bill

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jim Carlo wrote:
> 
> I owed NesCom a process for PAR numbering within 802. I did a brief search and
> could not find this written down, so I generated the following note. Does
> anyone know if this is contained elsewhere within 802?

Hal Keen may have described 802.1 numbering of standards (not PARs) in a
document that he generated some years ago.  Tony Jeffree more recently
incorporated some of Hal's stuff into another document that is on the
802.1 ftp site -- not sure where within the ftp site.

> 
> Comments on the Policy Below:
> 
> PAR Numbering for 802
> 
> 1) Standard 802 provides the basic architecture for 802 standards. As such,
> there is no number or letter suffix. There is currently a revision PAR, P802Rev
> that is updating this standard.
> 
> 2) Working Groups will utilize PAR numbers as 802.nx where:
> n - the number assigned to the Working Group
> x - a lower case letter assigned to each supplement or corrigenda.
> Notes:
> 2.1 -After x goes to z, the next PAR is 802.naa, 802.nab, etc.
> 2.2 -In general, the base working group standard, 802.n eventually includes all
> supplements and corrigenda.
> 2.3 -Revisions are numbered as 802.nRevm, where m is the revision update
> sequence number. In some cases, a Revision is started as a supplement, then
> becomes a revision, so the lower case letter holds.

The above is confusing in its description.  An example would help.

> 
> 3) In the case of 802.1, which is for higher layer protocols above the MAC, the
> PAR numbering is 802.1y or 802.1Y, where:
> y - is a lower case letter assigned to a supplement or corrigenda or
> Y - is an upper case letter assigned to a stand-alone standard that is
> applicable to a higher level protocol and is not meant to be integrated into
> the base standard, 802.1.

I don't know whether you are talking about just the future or both the
past and future, but after much experience with the upper/lower case
scheme, I can only recommend in the STRONGEST terms that you delete item
3).  Using upper/lower case as we have and as you describe above has
resulted in continual confusion.  I have absolutely no reason to believe
that it will not continue to do so in the future.

> 
> Notes:
> 3.1 -Both a small letter and capital letter are not used for the same
> character.

I don't know what this means.  802.1 has avoided using an upper case
letter for one standard and the same letter in lower case for another
supplement standard.  I can only imagine with horror what would have
happened if we had.

> 3.2 -This small and capital letter use can be confusing, and should not be
> depended upon to designate a standard or supplement, especially since some
> computer type fonts do not distinguish between capitalization.

I suggest that you change the first clause above to read: 
    "3.2 -This small and capital letter use has been and continues 
     to be VERY confusing, ..." 
This is the real situation.  Your wording waters down the problem.

> 
> 4) In some cases, where the project will be a supplement of 802.1Y, but the
> project deals totally with a single MAC protocol, n, the project number is
> 802.nx, as defined in the relevant MAC working group.
> 
> Jim Carlo(jcarlo@ti.com) Cellular:1-214-693-1776  Voice&FAX Mail:1-214-853-5274
> TI Fellow, Networking Standards at Texas Instruments
> Chair, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC6 Telecom and Info Exchange Between Systems
> Chair, IEEE 802 LAN MAN Standards Committee