Re: WG Consensus Call: draft-swallow-gmpls-overlay-00.txt

[Stephen Trowbridge <sjtrowbridge@lucent.com>]

John,

John Drake wrote:
(snipped)
> Snipped...
> 
> >From a carrier perspective, supporting a third UNI alternative will
> bring additional concerns regarding interoperability and managing the
> network.
> 
> JD:  No one is forcing you to supporting this interface, except perhaps
> potential customers.  To paraphrase George Swallow's 12/3 e-mail, if you
> don't think this interface is useful for you, please ignore it, but don't
> assume that it is not useful for others.

Let's see, a carrier wants interface A.

A vendor proposes to standardize another interface B which is similar, but
doesn't quite solve all the same problems as A, and tells the carrier "If
you don't like B you don't have to use it".

It seems to me that the carrier concern is that if interface A and interface
B are both standardized, and if (the/some) carrier(s) want interface A and
(many/most) vendors choose to build only interface B, then the carriers
don't get what they want.

This fear is what makes people reluctant to progress work on an interface
they don't feel is useful for them.

The idea of standards is surely to promote the deployment of interoperable
implementations, but part of accomplishing this is to try to limit the
number of "standardized" solutions to the same problem.
I think the next debate would be what we really mean by "the same" problem.
Some arguments have appeared that this interface is directed at a
different problem, so I have to ask whether it is different enough
to justify standardizing a different solution.
Regards,
Steve