[Steve Karg <skarg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ronnie,

> AFAIK   bacnet is a pay per standard thing.

BACnet is exactly like other networking standards (IEEE, ANSI, ISO, 
etc), and in fact, is an ANSI, ASHRAE, and ISO standard.

> Considering the lack of patches offered I also estimate the interest
> in fixing these bugs by people with access to the standard to be near
> null. :-(

Well, the interest is gaining a lot of momentum since we added the 
application layer decoding last March.  Up till then, it was not worth 
it to use Ethereal to decode the BACnet protocol.  Now quite a few 
people are actually using it, which probably accounts for the rise in 
bug reports. :-)

> IF the bacnet standards people could donate free of charge standards
> to people with interest in fixing these issues or maintaining these
> dissectors  I am sure that bug-to-resolution speed for these issues
> would be greatly accelerated.

The draft version of the standard that the BACnet committee uses as a 
reference is usually available from the BACnet ftp server.
ftp://SSPC:135@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/Public-Review/

This is identical to other protocols RFCs, and in fact, the RFCs for 
BACnet are also freely available from the ASHRAE.org website during 
their public review period (see under Technology & Standards, Standards 
Actions and Public Review Drafts).  For example, the following addenda 
are up for public review:
BSR/ASHRAE Addendum c to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2004, BACnet-A Data 
Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks 
(Second Public Review Draft:ISC to First Public Review Draft). (File 
size = 677KB).
BSR/ASHRAE Addendum d to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2004, BACnet-A Data 
Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks 
(Second Public Review Draft:ISC to First Public Review Draft). (File 
size = 98KB).
BSR/ASHRAE Addendum e to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2004, BACnet-A Data 
Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks 
(Second Public Review Draft:ISC to First Public Review Draft). (File 
size = 75KB).
BSR/ASHRAE Addendum f to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2004, BACnet-A Data 
Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks 
(First Public Review Draft). (File size = 219KB).
BSR/ASHRAE Addendum g to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2004, BACnet-A Data 
Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks 
(First Public Review Draft). (File size = 761KB).

> I neither got any sort of response from these people not from the ISO
> people when i requested standards to be donated.
> All my arguments that customers of theirs would have an enhanced
> experience by good protocol analyzer support fell into the sand.

I guess you didn't ask the right people. :-)  The flip-side is that 
there are companies that sell very good BACnet protocol analyzers 
(Cimetrics, Polarsoft - Windows only).

> I can start looking at the bugs for that protocol (CAN is the keyword,
> no promises made) day 1 after a free of charge full specification in
> hardback is provided to me   free of charge.

When and if I ever get a current free-of-charge hardback standard, I can 
send it along to you.  Those voting members of the BACnet committee (a 
dozen or so people) usually get a free hardcopy mailed to them by 
ASHRAE.  I received the 2001 version, but never received the 2004 
version.  I also have a 1995 version that I keep in the office.  I 
usually only reference the electronic version from the ftp site.

> Please feel free to forward to the bacnet guys.   It would be really
> useful to everyone if they could say upload the standards in pdf
> format to the wiki.

Yes, it would be very useful.  Unfortunately, the current BACnet 
standards are copyrighted by ASHRAE, and putting the BACnet PDF on the 
wiki would be illegal for me to do.  I am working on getting that kind 
of release, but it hasn't happened yet.

> end rant

Thanks for sharing!  I hope I can help.

Best Regards,

Steve