SIPPING WG R. Mahy Internet-Draft Cisco Systems, Inc. Expires: January 30, 2005 Aug 2004 Marketing Buzzword "SIPPING 16" Considered Harmful draft-mahy-sipping-16-00.txt Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, I certify that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which I am aware have been disclosed, and any of which I become aware will be disclosed, in accordance with RFC 3668. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on January 30, 2005. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). All Rights Reserved. Abstract The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) has become very popular, and with this popularity, the harmful misconceptions that there is a specific limit to the number of features that can be implemented using SIP primitives, and that informational documents produced by the SIPPING Working Group that show example call flows place restrictions on what can be implemented. One especially catchy buzzword--The "SIPPING 16"--supposedly refers to the sixteen basic features of SIP. This document describes why the mythical SIPPING 16 does not exist, and where to find out more information about SIP features. Mahy Expires January 30, 2005 [Page 1] Internet-Draft SIPPING 16 Aug 2004 Table of Contents 1. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.2 Informational References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 6 Mahy Expires January 30, 2005 [Page 2] Internet-Draft SIPPING 16 Aug 2004 1. Discussion The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [1] has become very popular, and with this popularity has come a variety of misconceptions about SIP in marketing literature, at conferences, and in the trade press. One particularly harmful misconception is that there is some magic limit to the number of phone-like features that can be implemented with SIP primitives, and that informational documents produced by the SIPPING Working Group that show example call flows place restrictions on what can be implemented. One especially catchy buzzword--The "SIPPING 16"--supposedly refers to the sixteen basic features of SIP. Some vendors go so far as to make statements like "SIP only has 16 features", as an excuse for a poor SIP implementation, or in order to steer customers to a proprietary approach. Of course, the "SIPPING 16" does not exist. The vendors who have latched onto the "SIPPING 16" idea do not even agree on what the sixteen features are. The IETF does not standardize features, and there is no finite limit on the number of features which can be built using the SIP protocol. The concept of counting features is a vestige of the same dubious practice in the telephony community. This practice encouraged micro-fragmentation of features to inflate a total feature count which was used purely for marketing purposes. Meanwhile usability experts point out that human end-users of phone systems use only a handful of the total features available. No end-user will ever have a desire to use every feature in a typical phone system, and many end-users do not use features that accomplish a useful function due to traditionally poor user interfaces in these systems. The SIPPING Working Group (which describes the usage of SIP as one of its core functions) has produced a number of informational documents to provide examples of how popular features from the telephony world can be implemented (for example: [3] and [4]). These examples do not restrict the number or variety of features available, nor do they even represent an exhaustive set of examples implemented in shipping products. (Note that as of this writing, most low-cost consumer SIP User Agents support many more than sixteen specific features.) The author of this document was asked once to comment on the "SIPPING 16" item mentioned in an RFI (Request For Information). Much to his chagrin, he eventually realized that the customer was referring to examples in the SIP Call Control Framework for which he was the editor. In some cases, SIPPING has produced Best Current Practice documents (for example: [2] and [5]) to inform the implementation community about difficult design decisions and to encourage interoperability. These are necessarily rare, and are only published after a Mahy Expires January 30, 2005 [Page 3] Internet-Draft SIPPING 16 Aug 2004 substantial amount of development experience has been acquired. 2. Security Considerations Misconceptions about the readiness of the SIP protocol can delay deployment of SIP-based solutions. SIP-based solutions typically support and use much stronger security than the proprietary systems they replace. As a result, misconceptions which delay SIP-deployment will generally downgrade the effective security of phone systems and other real-time applications. 3. IANA Considerations This document requires no action by IANA. 4. References 4.1 Normative References [1] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston, A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M. and E. Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261, June 2002. 4.2 Informational References [2] Rosenberg, J., Peterson, J., Schulzrinne, H. and G. Camarillo, "Best Current Practices for Third Party Call Control (3pcc) in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)", BCP 85, RFC 3725, April 2004. [3] Johnston, A. and R. Sparks, "Session Initiation Protocol Service Examples", draft-ietf-sipping-service-examples-07 (work in progress), July 2004. [4] Mahy, R., "A Call Control and Multi-party usage framework for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)", draft-ietf-sipping-cc-framework-03 (work in progress), October 2003. [5] Sparks, R. and A. Johnston, "Session Initiation Protocol Call Control - Transfer", draft-ietf-sipping-cc-transfer-02 (work in progress), February 2004. Mahy Expires January 30, 2005 [Page 4] Internet-Draft SIPPING 16 Aug 2004 Author's Address Rohan Mahy Cisco Systems, Inc. 5617 Scotts Valley Drive, Suite 200 Scotts Valley, CA 95066 USA EMail: rohan@cisco.com Mahy Expires January 30, 2005 [Page 5] Internet-Draft SIPPING 16 Aug 2004 Intellectual Property Statement The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. 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Disclaimer of Validity This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. Mahy Expires January 30, 2005 [Page 6]