Re: IETF & this list

[Andy Bierman <abierman@cisco.com>]

At 03:45 PM 1/11/2003 -0500, RJ Atkinson wrote:
>An Aside:
>
>        In the old IETF, some folks would build some prototypes in the lab,
>work out some issues, identify unresolved issues, let a few users play
>with the result and provide feedback, and then maybe those folks would
>publish an Experimental RFC (or Informational RFC, though Experimental
>seems better suited) on the outcome of that activity.  And then, with some
>running code in hand and some user feedback, possibly more than one set
>of running code possibly implementing different things and more than one
>set of user feedback, the IETF would create a WG to actually standardise
>a protocol in that area.  This WG would be more focused from early on
>because of the R&D time spent before the WG got created.  And the results
>back then were more often acceptable to the user community than seems
>common nowadays.
>
>        In the new IETF, folks decide that they want to work on a new protocol
>and spec it, so a WG gets created, then flounders for a bit while folks
>discuss what the protocol ought to do (normally without any experimental
>code or user feedback on that experimental code), then go write a standards-track
>document.
>
>        For my own part, I really prefer the old way to the new way.
>A feature of the "old way" is that interested folks can make some
>headway before we incur the organisational/management overhead of
>creating a formal WG.  (And in this particular case, I suspect that
>the list admin would not be upset if folks here made the discussions
>on this list more concrete and less general.)

I can't argue with this POV.  I think it's harder now because
the industry is more competitive, R&D budgets are tighter, and
there is even concern about anti-trust type of issues when
working on multi-vendor projects outside a recognized standards
body.

I don't blame Bert or Randy for not wanting to jump into
an XML project without some assurance that the effort will
be well-focused by the WG, well-supported by vendors, and 
well-received by operators.  I think it's reasonable to ask
anyone with a solution proposal to write it up in sufficient
detail and even back it up with running code.


>Ran
>rja@extremenetworks.com

Andy


--
to unsubscribe send a message to xmlconf-request@ops.ietf.org with
the word 'unsubscribe' in a single line as the message text body.
archive: <http://ops.ietf.org/lists/xmlconf/>