Server Push and Standards

[George Michaelson]

I asked on another list, relating to multicast. This is the best response
I've seen yet.

cheers
	-George

------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Mon, 24 Mar 1997 13:03:32 -0800
From:    Ross Finlayson <finlayson@lvn.com>
To:      rm@mash.cs.berkeley.edu
Subject: Re: is "server push" an RM issue?

Getting back to George's original question: What standards activities are
underway wrt. "server push".  Here are three 'data points' of possible
relevance:

Microsoft recently proposed a "Channel Definition Format" (CDF) for
describing the contents of 'channels' used by WWW-based "push" applications.
(See "http://www.microsoft.com/standards/cdf.htm".)  I think this is being
submitted to the "W3 Consortium".  As far as I can tell, however, this is
purely a data format, and thus does not directly address transport issues (&
certainly not multicast).

Bernard Aboba is organizing a BOF at the Memphis IETF on the topic of
"Unreliable Multicasting of Web Content".  Note that he's deliberately *not*
addressing reliable multicast techniques, so as to not step on the toes of
this IRTF working group.

I recently began a mailing list (see
"http://www.lvn.com/multikit/mafp-list-info.html") to discuss possible
standardization of a format (MAFP) for 'attribute' data in multicast-based
applications.  Among other things, I envisage such a data format being
useful for general-purpose multicast "push"-style applications.

        Ross.


------- End of Forwarded Message