Subject: RE: How many standards or protocols...

From: "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 11:43:55 -0700

> 	Note that none of your pushback contradicted my main claim,
> which is that IS-IS is not an *IETF* standard of any sort.
Examination
> of any accurate rfc-index.txt will confirm this.

Fine, but Randy is also right when he points out that just because a
spec is not an IETF standard does not mean that the spec is proprietary.
Practical network deployments use specs from many sources; the IETF is
one of them, but there are many other, e.g. the ITU, the IEEE, the ISO,
the W3C, not to mention the frame relay forum and similar organizations.
It is in fact a challenge for the IETF to know when to avoid duplicating
existing work -- and also when to go on despite existing work...

-- Christian Huitema

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From: RJ Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 15:05:32 -0400

> spec is not an IETF standard does not mean that the spec is proprietary.

Christian,

	As deployed IS-IS is not fully documented *anyplace*.  What is
actually deployed is not the same as ISO IS-IS, nor is it the same as
RFC-1195, nor are those 2 documents (and a few other more recent
RFCs) sufficient to create an interoperable IS-IS.

	Proprietary is a commonly used term to describe something that does
not have a full, complete, and open specification -- which is the
current state of IS-IS.  Now folks (including me) are trying to fix
that issue by publishing sundry non-standard RFCs on how the as-deployed
IS-IS really works (which effort is to be applauded).  But the 
bottom-line
remains that *today* the as-deployed IS-IS and the documented IS-IS
aren't the same.  I wish they were.

	Now the original point was someone else's inaccurate claim that the 
IETF
let both IS-IS and OSPF bloom, when really the IETF originally chose 
OSPF --
and IS-IS made a separate come-back in the deployed world during the 
mid-90s.

Cheers,

Ran
[email-masked]

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From: Bob Hinden <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 13:58:14 -0700

Ran,

>IS-IS really works (which effort is to be applauded).  But the bottom-line

I am glad to hear this activity is going on.

Regarding your definition of "proprietary".  From  Merriam-Webster Online 
at  http://www.m-w.com/ :

Main Entry: 1pro·pri·e·tary
Pronunciation: pr&-'prI-&-"ter-E
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -tar·ies
Date: 15th century
1 : one that possesses, owns, or holds exclusive right to something; 
specifically : PROPRIETOR 1
2 : something that is used, produced, or marketed under exclusive legal 
right of the inventor or maker; specifically : a drug (as a patent 
medicine) that is protected by secrecy, patent, or copyright against free 
competition as to name, product, composition, or process of manufacture
3 : a business secretly owned by and run as a cover for an intelligence 
organization

This matches my view that proprietary has more to do with ownership than 
the availability of open specifications.  A protocol can have open 
specifications, but still be proprietary.  For example prior to Sun 
Microsystems giving change control of NFS and RPC to the IETF, NFS and RPC 
had open specifications (and there were independent inter-operable 
implementations), but were still proprietary.

IS-IS as deployed on the Internet is an interesting case.  It is clearly 
open and is not proprietary, but as you point out there is no complete 
specification.   I don't think we have a term for this combination :-)

Regards,
Bob

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 15:35:24 -0700

Bob Hinden wrote:
> Regarding your definition of "proprietary".  From  Merriam-Webster 
> Online at  http://www.m-w.com/ :
> 
> medicine) that is protected by secrecy, patent, or copyright against 
> free competition as to name, product, composition, or process of 
> manufacture
> Microsystems giving change control of NFS and RPC to the IETF, NFS and 
> RPC had open specifications (and there were independent inter-operable 

"open" is ambiguous:

	(A) visible, i.e., documented (PDF and PS qualify)
	(B) able to be modified (PDF and PS do not qualify)

E.g., Adobe's PDF and PostScript are both (A) but not (B).

"proprietary" can (as per definition above) apply to either, and thus 
cannot be used to exclusively denote case (A).

Joe

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 08:43:42 -0700

>specification.   I don't think we have a term for this combination :-)

That condition used to be the norm for Internet specifications, too.  It 
was the motivation behind the initial Interop conferences.

So we probably want to choose the label carefully...

d/

----------
Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850