Folks,
while implementing our BFCP stack (the 'running code' part of the
protocol), we have discovered a couple of relatively minor bugs in
the BFCP spec that need to be fixed. They are probably too big to be
fixed thru RFC editor notes. My suggestion would be to remove the
draft from the queue, perform the changes I propose below, and send
it back to the queue. Opinions?
Section 5.3.9 defines the ChairAction message. That message can
contain several floors (which belong to the same floor request
operation) but can only provide a single queue position (within the
REQUEST-STATUS attribute) for all of them. We need to be able to
provide different queue positions for different floors (e.g., second
for floor 1 and third for floor 2). In order to do this, we need to
define a new grouped attribute called FLOOR-REQUEST-STATUS whose
definition would be the following:
Attribute header:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|x x x x x x x|M| Length | Floor ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Attribute ABNF:
FLOOR-REQUEST-STATUS = (FLOOR-REQUEST-STATUS-HEADER)
(REQUEST-STATUS)
[STATUS-INFO]
*[EXTENSION-ATTRIBUTE]
Now, the already existing FLOOR-REQUEST-INFORMATION grouped attribute
would carry '1*(FLOOR-REQUEST-STATUS)' instead of '1*(FLOOR-ID)'
The same for the already existing ChairAction message.
Additionally, we would define a new grouped attribute called
OVERALL-REQUEST-STATUS, whose definition would be almost identical to
the FLOOR-REQUEST-STATUS attribute. The only difference is that this
one would carry a Floor Request ID instead of a Floor ID. This
attribute would be used within the FLOOR-REQUEST-INFORMATION
attribute, whose ABNF would become:
OLD:
FLOOR-REQUEST-INFORMATION = (FLOOR-REQUEST-INFORMATION-HEADER)
(REQUEST-STATUS) <--
1*(FLOOR-ID) <--
[BENEFICIARY-INFORMATION]
[REQUESTED-BY-INFORMATION]
[PRIORITY]
[PARTICIPANT-PROVIDED-INFO]
[STATUS-INFO] <--
*[EXTENSION-ATTRIBUTE]
NEW:
FLOOR-REQUEST-INFORMATION = (FLOOR-REQUEST-INFORMATION-HEADER)
(OVERALL-REQUEST-STATUS)
1*(FLOOR-REQUEST-STATUS)
[BENEFICIARY-INFORMATION]
[REQUESTED-BY-INFORMATION]
[PRIORITY]
[PARTICIPANT-PROVIDED-INFO]
*[EXTENSION-ATTRIBUTE]
Then, we would need to add a brief discussion on queues, indicating
that the queue positions in the OVERALL-REQUEST-STATUS attribute
refer to positions in a global queue for floor requests and that
queue positions in the FLOOR-REQUEST-STATUS attribute refer to
positions in a queue for floor requests for a particular floor. Of
course, implementations are free to implement (or provide information
about) one, both, or none of these queue types.
The ChairAction message would become:
OLD:
ChairAction = (COMMON-HEADER)
1*(FLOOR-ID) <--
(FLOOR-REQUEST-ID)
(REQUEST-STATUS) <--
[STATUS-INFO]
*[EXTENSION-ATTRIBUTE]
NEW:
ChairAction = (COMMON-HEADER)
1*(FLOOR-REQUEST-STATUS)
(FLOOR-REQUEST-ID)
[STATUS-INFO]
*[EXTENSION-ATTRIBUTE]
A different issue (more easily fixable than the issue above) is that
the FloorRequest and the FloorQuery messages should carry
1*(FLOOR-ID) instead of *(FLOOR-ID).
Cheers,
Gonzalo
