Subject: RE: IESG proposed statement on the IETF mission

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 18:07:49 +0300

Hi Harald,

I'm going to pick on one statement, which other have as well.

> It is important that this is "For the Internet,"  and does not include 
> everything that happens to use IP.  IP is being used in a myriad of 
> real-world applications, such as controlling street lights, but the 
> IETF does not standardize those applications.

I almost feel that this should just be dropped from the statement.  My
reasons being that I have been told by the IESG about protocol extensibility
is that the IETF wants to have a tighter control over protocol 
extensibility, even for extensions thought to be for limited use
or specific networks (for example, cellular networks).  The reason
being is that once something is out there, it often starts to be used
in ways which were not originally planned or used outside of its 
original 'limited use' plans.  Therefore, in order to ensure proper
protocol behavior & interoperability, the IESG wants to manage
extensibility.  This has been very true in SIP & Diameter, for example.

On the other hand, we see a protocol like RADIUS, which the IETF
has never done a good job at working with or standardizing, being
developed in 4 or more SDOs, and not in a colaborative manner.  This
makes a big mess with the RADIUS spec, and RADIUS does seem like a
protocol that has a big effect on the Internet.

So, in summary, the IESG has shown not to follow the above paragraph,
sometimes even for good reasons.  I can't think of a way in which 
modify the paragraph to make it any better - because there will always
be examples of work that the IETF choses to standardize (or not)
which will violate that part of the mission.  Perhaps moving the 
'for the internet to the previous paragraph is what is needed.

 This leaves open the very interesting and difficult questions of
 how to measure quality, relevance, and timeliness.  The IETF
 has identified interoperability, security, scalability and 
 'for the Internet' as essential, but without attaching measurements 
 to those characteristics.

John

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:44:13 -0800

--On 24. oktober 2003 18:07 +0300 [email-masked] wrote:

> reasons being that I have been told by the IESG about protocol
> extensibility is that the IETF wants to have a tighter control over
> protocol

True. Nearly a year ago, we attempted to publish 
draft-iesg-vendor-extensions, to describe these problems in more detail - 
but we failed to get that finished.
> protocol that has a big effect on the Internet.

You'll have no disagreement from me that RADIUS is a problem!

> 'for the internet to the previous paragraph is what is needed.

as I've said before - I don't think we can come up with a mission statement 
that retroactively blesses everything we've done well before, or 
retroactively curses everything we've done badly. And we do require 
flexibility to "do what's right". But without the ability to talk about 
what the mission of the IETF ... I think we'll do badly.

                       Harald

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 05:58:38 -0600

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <[email-masked]>
> but we failed to get that finished.

I should probably get out more, but I wasn't familiar with this draft.
I see that version 00 was announced. It looks to have been discussed
in a couple of posts on ccamp (and mpls? but I didn't look), and
revectored onto the main IETF discussion list, where it was the
subject of two posts. The draft says "The initial version of this
document was put together by the IESG", suggesting that they were
asking for input or other forms of help, but that didn't happen.

(In your opinion:) Was this a case of insufficient agreement, or a
case of insufficient cycles? Or something else?

Spencer

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:56:34 -0800

Harald - I would agree that you are right here that the IETF's mission
process and in fact operations have fluttered in the breeze but the breeze
was caused by whoever was chair at the time's running by or away from the
key issue that they as the chair were given the ability because of a very
weak charter and very ambiguous processes (may instead of must everywhere)
create whatever it is they wanted. The issue is that the wants and mandates
of the chair's have changed over the years and so the IETF has changed in
response to that.

What that tends to indicate is that the IETF is responsive to changes in its
management's desires but not in the proletariat's... So then what I suggest
is the answer is a more rigidized standards process and in particular a set
of unambiguous policies and procedures that are at least modeled if not
tested before being released. And that are in and of themselves the same for
all they are applied to or around.

Todd Glassey
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 9:44 PM
Subject: RE: IESG proposed statement on the IETF mission