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[802SEC] Minor changes to P802.3as Five Criteria



Title: Minor changes to P802.3as Five Criteria

Colleagues:

The Frame Format Extension Study Group adopted two minor changes to its Five Criteria. The first though appearing editorial is actually substantive, the second is editorial..

Criteria #2, second bullet used to read:
"This project will not affect compatibility of IEEE 802.3 networks with respect to the IEEE 802 Overview and Architecture or IEEE 802.2 LLC Services."

It now reads:
"This project will not affect compatibility of IEEE 802.3 networks with respect to the IEEE 802 Overview and Architecture or significantly affect compatibility with IEEE 802.2 LLC Services."

The reason this change was made is that a Type/Length using the length interpretation will no longer work when Suffix fields are present. The Length specifies the number of octets remaining in the frame minus the CRC, or in other words the length of the data field. If a suffix field is present, there is concern that 802.2 LLC will no longer work correctly. This is not thought to be a big issue because:

a) 802.2 LLC is rarely if ever used these days
b) Type encodings work just fine...



Criteria #4, used to read:
"There is no perceived technical challenge. Many proprietary implementations already exist that support the goals of this project."

It now reads:
"There is no perceived technical challenge. Many implementations already exist that support the goals of this project."

--Bob Grow

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