Re: [emergency] Unique Message Identifiers in CAP

[R. Allen Wyke <emergency-tc@earthlink.net>]

On Mar 26, 2004, at 6:48 PM, Art Botterell wrote:

> At 4:59 PM -0500 3/26/04, R. Allen Wyke wrote:
>> With all due respect, there is a dimension to building systems that  
>> support standards, and therefore building standards that can be  
>> supported, that not everyone has experience with nor are they  
>> expected to.
>
> With equal respect, I'm not sure we all know enough about each others'  
> experiences for any of us to claim superior standing on that basis.

As well you shouldn't, which is what prompted the need for me to make  
the statement.

>> An interface is built, however it is impossible to connect with other  
>> systems in a standard (official) way as that means of connection has  
>> not been defined.
>
> Well, as mentioned earlier, isn't that really an Infrastructure issue?

It is an issue that the IF SC has been assigned to provide information  
back on, which that have done to some degree. It is certainly, as I  
think you are implying, time to take next steps with that now that CAP  
1.0 is finished from a content standpoint.

> Anyway, seems like DMIS is fairly "official"... unless what we really  
> mean by that is "our own"... and quite a number of folks have managed  
> to connect successfully to that.  Have you tried it?

That is not the issue. Do not confuse "official", as in something built  
by someone, with something that has been through the OASIS process via  
the EM TC. DMIS, as it pertains to the EM TC, is not official.

>>  Your ethical responsibility as a standards developer is to put a  
>> usable standard out there for people to implement, and then seek to  
>> improve it.
>
> Guess I'm not clear on what your criterion for "usable" is.  A number  
> of folks are using the CAP format right now... several of them daily  
> and in significant volume.

I am, in as simply a way as I know how to say, referring to two  
completely different systems who did NOT have offline conversations  
being able to exchange CAP alerts. An analogy would be point to  
supporting HTML (author/user agent).

> Again, I think what you're talking about isn't the CAP messaging  
> format but some other Infrastructure standard that we've yet to  
> devise.  Perhaps eventually it could all be rolled together into  
> something that came closer to your preferred definition of "protocol",

Yes, that is what I am saying. If you want to call it an Infrastructure  
standard, or whatever, that is fine. As I have stated before, how this  
situation manifests itself into a normative and actionable state in  
terms of a standard can vary, but right now I consider that secondary  
to acknowledging and continuing to work on/discuss the technical  
details.

> but we'll have to get the missing bits before that becomes an option.

Not sure what you mean by this - "missing bits." Just look at the DMIS  
implementation that people connected to. Talk all the discussions that  
happened, what was the technical result of those discussions, plus all  
the lessons learned and you have a great start on turing this into  
something official, which takes care of my issues as well as others who  
have expressed them.

> - Art
>
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