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Minimal OSI Upper-Layers (thinosi) Charter Status: Concluded October, 1994 Chair(s): Peter Furniss Description of Working Group: The OSI upper-layer protocols (above transport) are rich in function and specified in large, complex and numerous documents. However, in supporting a particular application, the protocol actually used is only a subset of the whole. An implementation is not required to support features it never uses, and it is, or should be, possible to have relatively lightweight implementations specialized for a particular application or group of applications with similar requirements. The application protocol could be an OSI application layer standard or a protocol originally defined for TCP/IP or other environment. It will be easier to produce such implementations if the necessary protocol is described concisely in a single document. An implementation, of the mapping of X Window System protocol over OSI upper-layers, is based on this principle. The working group is chartered to produce two documents: ``Skinny bits for byte-stream'': a specification of the bit sequences that implement the OSI upper-layer protocols (session, presentation and ACSE) as needed to support an application that requires simple connection, and byte-stream read and write. This will be based on the octet sequences needed to support X. This will not be expected to be provide a full equivalent of TCP, nor to cover specific standardized protocols. ``Skinny bits for Directory'': a specification of the bit sequences needed for the Directory Access Protocol - in the same style as the byte-stream specification, but to include DAP. The level of functionality of this is to be determined. An important aspect of the group's work is to find out if it is possible to produce useful and concise specifications of this kind. A minor part is to think of better names. The group will also encourage the deployment of X/OSI implementations and interworking experiments with it. Request for Comments:
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