Subject: IESG proposed statement on the IETF mission

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 23:48:10 +0200

Greetings,

As part of the discussions about change process within
the IETF, the IESG has come to believe that a somewhat longer statement of 
the IETF's mission and social dynamics might provide useful context for the 
community's discussion.  As part of that, we'd like to put the following 
document out for feedback.

It incorporates lots of ideas and some text from existing RFCs
and IETF web pages, but is more focused on change than those have
been.  We hope it captures a sense of the context of the work of
improving the IETF, by capturing some of the social dynamics which
have been an implicit part of the IETF's work and style over the years.

We also hope that by making some of those implicit elements more
explicit, we may find it easier to understand how to make changes
that will "go with the grain" of the IETF's history and culture.

We'd be happy to have feedback on it, either sent to the IETF list
for public discussion or to the IESG.  This is an informal piece of work, 
and may never be published in RFC form, but may rather appear on the IETF 
web pages somewhere.

Your comments are welcome!

		Harald Alvestrand
		For the IESG

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 11:06:49 -0400

It's an interesting document, but it looks to me a bit much
like a problem description and I'm not sure how it relates
to other existing work (the problem description document in
the problem working group, most obviously).  I particularly
liked the discussion of the IETF mission - it could provide
the basis for tackling one problem that's been raised on
a number of occasions, which is that the organization doesn't
have a clear sense of mission or vision.  Even though in the
first paragraph of the "Social Dynamics" section you say that
"As they are neither good nor bad, it is not appropriate to
call them "problems;" rather think of them as social forces
and dynamics" a number of them really are framed as problems.
Indeed, it would be hard to define some way in which statements like
"making integration more difficult" are not problem statements.

I'd really like to see the document, which I think has good
fundamentals, refocused on mission and goals.

Melinda

---

From: Scott W Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:04:45 -0400

> have been an implicit part of the IETF's work and style over the years.

OK, but first, it doesn't clarify the mission, or the social contract.
At most it makes a couple vague statements after describing some general
problems.  It looks like the IESG has some sense of where the
problem-statement/solutions process is going, and wants to run with it.
That's okay -- but please say explicitly that's what's happening, if it
is.

> that will "go with the grain" of the IETF's history and culture.

What I want is a renewed, clear statement of the fundamental principles
of the IETF which must not be violated or weakened during the
problem/solution process.  It's important that the leadership of the
IETF keep clear themselves on what the fundamental principles are, and
to reiterate them when necessary (like now).  That's part of the social
contract itself.  There are principles which are at the heart of the
organization and which the (pseudo-)consensus process doesn't get to
touch.

> The IETF Mission
> ----------------
> 
> The IETF's mission has historically been embedded in a shared
> understanding that making engineering choices based on the long
> term interest of the Internet as a whole produces better long-term
> results for each participant than making choices based on short term
> considerations, because the value of those advantages is ultimately
> derived from the health of the whole.  The long term interest of the
> Internet includes the premise that "the Internet is for everyone".
> 
> Two years ago, the IESG felt that making the mission of the IETF
> more explicit was needed.  The following terse statement has since
> been promulgated, first by IESG members and then by others:
> 
>    "The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant,
>     and timely standards for the Internet."

The purpose of the IETF has always been to make the Internet work
better, in measurable operational terms.  All else descends from that.
We do standards because we have to, for now and for the future.  Why do
we care about network operators being in the room if our prime mission
is to make standards?  Why do we care if there are two interoperable
implementations?  The operations work of the IETF is important unless it
is being taken care of elsewhere.  It isn't frosting on a standards body
cake, it's just as important as standards.  

Beyond that, yes, the IETF is primarily an SDO, because many operational
issues and agreement on deployment BCPs are being taken care of by other
means, and also because standards is our main measurable output in the
eyes of the outside world.  The above statement applies, but it is not a
basic principle.  It derives from our fundamental responsibility, to
have an Internet that works well today and is robust and flexible enough
to work well in the future.

> 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.

A very poor distinction.  Everything runs on the Internet eventually,
regardless of what private area it was meant for to start with.
Experience is that everyone wins if there are Internet-compatible ways
of doing things from the beginning.  I fully expect street light control
to run as a secure service along with many other services over a generic
IP network.  However, it's okay to say that priority will be given to
work on the public Internet.

> The IETF has also had a strong operational component, with a tight
> bond, and hence coordination, between protocol developers and
> network operators, and has had many participants who did both.
> This has provided valuable feedback to allow correction of
> misguided standardization efforts, and has provided feedback to
> sort out which standards were actually needed.  As the field has
> grown explosively, specialization has set in, and market pressures
> have risen, there has been less and less operator participation in
> the IETF.

This has nothing to do with either mission or social contract.  Are you
saying "therefore we need to change our mission"?

Similarly for almost all of the rest.  What's the point?  Are you
reiterating the problem-statement work?  They're doing all right,
although perhaps you could help push the work to completion.  It would
be much more useful for you to reaffirm the fundamental principles that
are not on the auction block.

Have a good time at the meeting, I won't make it this time.

See you ... Scott

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:48:37 -0400

overall, I like the document.  some comments:

> However, while Dave Clark's famous saying
> 
>   "We do not believe in kings, presidents, or voting.
>    We believe only in rough consensus and running code,"

is this an accurate quote?  I've usually seen it written

	We reject kings, presidents, and voting. 
	We believe in rough consensus and running code.

I agree with this form, but not with the way you've stated it.
I certainly don't believe "only" in rough consensus and running code -
I also believe in explicit definition of goals and requirements,
careful design by knowledgable experts, analysis, iterative
specification, wide public review, etc.

>     and timely standards for the Internet."

I actually believe IETF has a somewhat wider purpose than that.  What
I usually say is "we're trying to help the Internet work better".
We do this partially by authoring and maintaining protocol standards, 
but we use other mechanisms also.  In addition to standards, we produce 
informational and experimental documents and BCPs.   We provide formal 
and informal advice and feedback to various parties about operational
practices,  implementation practices, efforts by other SDOs, proposed
regulations, etc.  All of these are relevant to, and consistent with,
the purpose of helping the Internet to work better.

We *ought* to provide more architectural direction or advice - our
failure to resolve architectural issues in advance of deployment of
products with conflicting views of the architecture (or in some 
cases, a simple lack of care or foresight on those vendors' parts) has
caused a number of conflicts and operational problems, and has impaired
the ability of the Internet to support diverse applications.

I also believe that some amount of experimentation (perhaps not all
that is being done under IETF's purview) is part of the process of
"trying to make the Internet work better"

> The IETF
> has identified interoperability, security, and scalability as
> essential, but without attaching measurements to those
> characteristics.

that's a start.  there are a lot more characteristics than these that
should be considered in a design, that we haven't articulated yet,
but we need to.

> IETF does not standardize those applications.

I disagree with the sentiment as I understand it.  I don't think it's
realistic anymore to take the view that what people run entirely on 
private networks is their own business and outside of IETF's purview. 
NATs, private addresses, and DHCP with short lease times have all had
devistating effects on the Internet's ability to support applications. 
Insecure applications can facilitate the breeding of viruses that affect
the entire network even if their intended interactions are only between
a local client and server.

We do have to limit our scope.  We don't have the ability to scale to
the point where we could standardize everything that uses IP, and it
would be silly of us to try to claim authority to do so.  But it might
be reasonable for us to define standards for how local networks work
(to provide applications with a predictable environment), or to define
standards which all applications should adhere to (to minimize security
issues) which can be incorporated by reference into other protocol
specifications.

regarding the section on "Quality and Architectural Review".  what strikes
me about this section is the (implicit) assumption that architecture is
done after the fact.  rather than looking ahead to minimize and resolve
conflicts well before they acquire the inertia of wide deployment, we 
try to fix things after the fact.

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:57:11 -0400

> "The purpose of  the IETF is to create high  quality, relevant, and timely
> standards for the Internet." 

> IETF does not standardize those applications. 

Well, let's test this assertion.  Suppose a consortium of electric companies
develops a UDP-based protocol  for monitoring and controlling street lights.
It turns  out that  this protocol generates  an unbounded amount  of traffic
(say,  proportional to  the square  of the  number of  street lights  in the
world), has no  congestion control, and no security, but  is expected to run
over the Internet. 

According to you, this has nothing to  do with the IETF.  It might result in
the congestive collapse of the Internet,  but who cares, the IETF doesn't do
street  lights.  I would  like  to see  the  criteria  which determine  that
telephones belong on the Internet but street lights don't!

Another problem  with your  formulation is that  the Internet is  a growing,
changing, entity,  so "for the Internet"  often means "for what  I think the
Internet  should  be  in  a  few  years", and  this  is  then  a  completely
unobjective criterion.  One  would hope instead that the  IETF would want to
encourage competition between different  views of Internet evolution, as the
competition of ideas is the way to make progress. 

I also do not understand whether "for the Internet" means something different
than "for IP networking" or not.  

I think  it should  also be part  of the  mission to produce  standards that
facilitate the migration to IP  of applications and infrastructures that use
legacy networking  technologies.  Such  migration seems to  be good  for the
Internet, but I don't know if it is "for the Internet" or not.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:58:24 -0400

> One  would hope instead that the  IETF would want to

what I would say instead is that the IETF should encourage this competition 
within the sphere of architectural discussion - well in advance of development
of specific standards or deployment of specific products.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:16:09 -0400

> specification, wide public review, etc.

Of course, proper design and development techniques increase the likelyhood of
running code - and "proof by example running code" is always a good way to
achieve a consensus.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 11:04:32 +0200

Eric,

--On 15. oktober 2003 12:57 -0400 Eric Rosen <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Well, let's test this assertion.  Suppose a consortium of electric
> companies develops a UDP-based protocol  for monitoring and controlling
> street lights. It turns  out that  this protocol generates  an unbounded
> amount  of traffic (say,  proportional to  the square  of the  number of
> street lights  in the world), has no  congestion control, and no
> security, but  is expected to run over the Internet.
>
> According to you, this has nothing to  do with the IETF.  It might result
> in the congestive collapse of the Internet,  but who cares, the IETF
> doesn't do street  lights.  I would  like  to see  the  criteria  which
> determine  that telephones belong on the Internet but street lights don't!

thanks for making the most concise statement of the conflict here in the 
discussion so far!
I think this point is one of the critical causes of conflict when talking 
about the IETF mission - and unless we lance the boil, actually talk about 
it, and attempt to *resolve* the issue, we will go on revisiting the issue 
forever, with nothing but wasted energy to show for it.

In the discussions leading up to this document, we actually had 3 different 
other levels of "inclusivity" up for consideration:

- "Everything that runs over the Internet is appropriate for IETF 
standardization". Obviously, that might cause some reactions from 
organizations like the W3C, OMG, ISO, ITU, the power grid standardizers, 
the bank transaction standardizers and others.... even if the IETF were 
able to gather the required competence, it's hard to see how we could build 
a management structure that could handle "everything".

- "Everything that needs open, documented interoperability and runs over 
the Internet is appropriate for IETF standardization". A bit smaller, but 
still huge, and hard to draw boundaries around. Advantage: Everything we 
currently work on is unquestionably part of the IETF's scope.

- "Everything that builds infrastructures on the Internet that needs to be 
open and interoperable is appropriate for IETF standardization". This would 
place SMTP, DNS and LDAP (in the original vision) inside the IETF's sphere, 
but would leave the traffic lights (and the current way LDAP is used) 
outside it.

- "Everything that can seriously impact the Internet is appropriate for 
IETF standardization". Argues for keeping HTTP and DNS, would include your 
hypothetical traffic lights, but would probably leave POP/IMAP out, and 
leaves people arguing about both SIP and L3VPN.

- "For the Internet" - only the stuff that is directly involved in making 
the Internet work is included in the IETF's scope.

It's far from clear in my mind what the right thing is, or what the 
appropriate path forward is if the IETF regards its purpose as being one or 
the other - we might, for instance, decide that we standardize stuff that 
needs to be open and interoperable, but have different evaluation criteria 
for those things than for those things that "make the Internet work", and 
will dispose our resources accordingly - I don't know. And if we decide 
that certain things we currently do are outside our scope, we've got a 
responsibility to make sure the work effort is handled in a responsible 
fashion.

But it's relatively clear to my mind that continuing to have both sides of 
a discussion argue based on "the mission of the IETF", with conflicting 
definitions, is not the best thing for the Internet.

So - rather than stating something completely vague, we put out a proposal. 
If it's the wrong proposal, it should be changed. But please be specific 
about what you think it should be changed to.

makes sense?

                  Harald

---

From: mark seery <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 08:53:48 -0700

Harald.

Interesting, important, thanks.....

Internet usage
==========

One of the large dynamics not explicitly mentioned is the increased 
commercial usage/value of the Internet and how that drives the community 
in new directions.

Trust model
=========

Inherent in Eric's problem statement is the notion that end systems have 
the ability to impact the experience other Internet users have. Whether 
this is the result of an historical trust model, where people using the 
Internet were assumed to a) have clue and b) be acting in the best 
interests of the community, or whether this is the result of other 
community values, this diserves comment/debate, IMHO.

The basic dynamic of course that needs to be balanced is the rights of 
Internet users, the role and obligations of operators, and the creative 
abuse of the network that could lead to unforseen new value and 
applications.

Discusion of trust models will inevitably also lead us down the road of 
discussing hairy issues such as (D)DOS - but isn't that one of the more 
pressing issues today?

Network Architecture & layers 1-9
=========================

Firstly, seems there are four basic functions that need addressing in 
the building of internets (remembering the network of networks value, 
there is not one "I"nternet):

-Transport of packets from one edge of an internet to the other edge 
 (PE if u like, but...).
-Transport of packets from end system to end system over one of more 
internets
-Management and operation of internets
-Applications that make use of the above infrastructure

Based on the inclusivity problem statement positions you have 
considered, and other comments WRT how much the IETF can do, it would 
appear that over time the last bullet point above might become disjoint 
from the first three. Not arguing that application development should be 
done at the IETF, but I think that some recognition needs to be made of 
the vastly different skill sets and interests of end-system operators 
and engineers and infrastructure operators and engineers. Perhaps the 
"area" concept needs another super-layer, especially given the vast 
difference in communities of liasion.

Lastly, some discussion of layer 1-to-9 should take place. Seems to me 
the IETF works very well when focused at layers 3 to 4; has of course 
established many important application layer standards; but experiences 
challenging liasion when focusing below layer three (data/user plane) - 
PPP not withstanding. In the spirit of "we can not do everything", this 
is deserving of discussion if for no other reason than to clear the air 
as we move forward.

Perhaps one of the most important areas of focus is the connection of 
end systems and internets to other internets. This is an area that must 
allow for creative abuse of the network through both freedom of higher 
layer protocols and also the facilitation and participation of as many 
systems vendors as possible addressing cable, wireless, wireline,....... 
This area should especially be supported by standards, implementation 
agreeements, and interoperability efforts.

The immutable vs the mutable
=====================

Seems like it would be useful to separate the immutable from the mutable.

Examples of immutable might be (not a prescription just examples):

-rough consensus
-running code
-Chairs that operate in the best interests of the community
-the UNIX-like adherence to development of small building blocks (also 
present in biology BTW).
-network of networks

Examples of the mutable might be:

-over the next 5 years we are going to focus on (D)DOS

Lancing the boil
============

There is nothing nice, pleasant, or enjoyable about lancing boils, but 
if we are to do so, then the starting point should be the encouragement 
of the identification of the largest boils.

---

From: Bill Manning <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 09:41:35 -0700 (PDT)

% --On 15. oktober 2003 12:57 -0400 Eric Rosen <[email-masked]> wrote:
% 
% > Well, let's test this assertion.  Suppose a consortium of electric
% > companies develops a UDP-based protocol  for monitoring and controlling
% > street lights. It turns  out that  this protocol generates  an unbounded
% > amount  of traffic (say,  proportional to  the square  of the  number of
% > street lights  in the world), has no  congestion control, and no
% > security, but  is expected to run over the Internet.
% >
% > According to you, this has nothing to  do with the IETF.  It might result
% > in the congestive collapse of the Internet,  but who cares, the IETF
% > doesn't do street  lights.  I would  like  to see  the  criteria  which
% > determine  that telephones belong on the Internet but street lights don't!
% 
% thanks for making the most concise statement of the conflict here in the 
% discussion so far!
% I think this point is one of the critical causes of conflict when talking 
% about the IETF mission - and unless we lance the boil, actually talk about 
% it, and attempt to *resolve* the issue, we will go on revisiting the issue 
% forever, with nothing but wasted energy to show for it.
% 
% In the discussions leading up to this document, we actually had 3 different 
% other levels of "inclusivity" up for consideration:
% 
% - "Everything that runs over the Internet is appropriate for IETF 
% 
% - "Everything that needs open, documented interoperability and runs over 
% the Internet is appropriate for IETF 
% 
% - "Everything that builds infrastructures on the Internet that needs to be 
% open and interoperable is appropriate for IETF standardization". 
% 
% - "Everything that can seriously impact the Internet is appropriate for 
% IETF standardization". 

% - "For the Internet" - only the stuff that is directly involved in making 
% the Internet work is included in the IETF's scope.
% 
% a discussion argue based on "the mission of the IETF", with conflicting 
% definitions, is not the best thing for the Internet.
% 
%                   Harald

	I guess for me, I always thought that the IETF and its
	precursors were interested in developing engineering 
	solutions / designing protocols that would allow "end2end or
	any2any" communications, regardless of underlying transport
	media, be it seismic wave, avian carrier, radio waves or
	the PSTN.  - At no time did I ever truly beleive that 
	the systems that used these protocols/solutions would always
	be on and fully connected.  Infrastructures that use IETF
	products have nearly always been only partially connected
	and many systems are not always on.
	
	So while a design goal might have been to support always 
	on/fully connected state, the reality is that infrastructres
	have nearly always been disjoint/unconnected and endpoints
	come and go.  But when they are connectable, they should 
	function in a seamless, e2e fashion, at least IMHO.

	And then you neglect an unstated presumption in the last 
	two bullet points:  As perceived by who?  

--bill
Opinions expressed may not even be mine by the time you read them, and
certainly don't reflect those of any other entity (legal or otherwise).

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:15:02 -0400

> the Internet work is included in the IETF's scope. 

In other words, routing,  DNS, and Internet operations/management.  Adopting
this as  the IETF's mission  would be a  very radical change  indeed!  While
this particular  mission statement does seem  to reflect the  interests of a
certain notorious IESG member, let's not pretend that this has ever been the
limit of the IETF's mission.  The IETF has always been concerned with things
that make the Internet more useful,  and with things that expand the utility
of the IP protocol suite.  There's never been a time when "for the Internet"
was an accurate representation of the IETF's concerns.

You are  of course welcome  to propose such  a radical change to  the IETF's
mission.  But  if you are  going to circulate  a document under  the subject
line "IESG proposed statement on the IETF mission", you should make it clear
that the  IESG is proposing to make  a complete change in  the IETF mission.
Instead,  you  give  the impression  that  the  IESG  thinks that  "for  the
Internet" is and has always been the IETF's mission. 

The  formulation   I  like  is  "Everything  that   needs  open,  documented
interoperability  and  runs  over  the  Internet  is  appropriate  for  IETF
standardization".  This is  much truer to the IETF's  current and historical
practice.  

That doesn't  necessarily mean that  the IETF has to  standardize everything
that falls within  its mission.  For instance, a  particular area might fall
within the mission, but the IETF  might not have the expertise to tackle it.
A WG  in that area  could then be  rejected on the grounds  of "insufficient
expertise".  Such decisions  would have to be made  on a case-by-case basis.
Again, this is the way such decisions have always been made in the IETF.

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 11:36:05 -0600 (MDT)

> From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>

> was an accurate representation of the IETF's concerns.

That is wrong or at least a gross overstatement.

> ...

That is also wrong or at least a gross overstatement.  There have been
many things that the IETF has chosen to step away from but that ran
and run over the Internet.  Some graphics standards come immediately
to my mind.

> Again, this is the way such decisions have always been made in the IETF.

No committee is ever able to limit itself on grounds of insufficient
expertise.  The people who join committees are predisposed to think
that they're sufficiently expert to deal with the subject matter.

Those graphics standards were kept out of the IETF not because the
working groups involved thought they didn't think they were experts,
but because the subject was out of scope for the IETF.  That most of
participants had no clues about computer graphics was incomprehensible
to most of the participants, and unfortunately irrelevant.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 14:25:57 -0400

> That is wrong or at least a gross overstatement. 

If  that's  what  you think,  I  invite  you  to  make  a list  of  all  the
IETF-standardized protocols and explain how  they are all (or even more than
50% of them) needed to make the Internet work.

> There have been many things that the IETF has chosen to step away from but
> that  ran  and  run  over  the Internet.   Some  graphics  standards  come
> immediately to my  mind ... Those graphics standards were  kept out of the
> IETF not  because the  working groups involved  thought they  didn't think
> they were experts, but because the subject was out of scope for the IETF." 

I'm not  familiar with this particular  case, but I don't  see why protocols
for distributing graphics would be thought  to fall outside the scope of the
IETF, any more  than protocols for distributing voice  or video.  Of course,
graphics standards  that have nothing  do with distribution of  the graphics
over IP would be out of scope.

> expertise.  

Now, there  is a  gross overstatement!  For  everyone who  proclaims himself
(rightly or  wrongly) to be  an expert on  some topic, there are  always two
other people who claim  that he is clueless.  It's not uncommon  for a WG to
refuse  to  pick up  a  topic  because the  consensus  is  that the  topic's
proponents are clueless.

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:40:42 -0600 (MDT)

> 50% of them) needed to make the Internet work.

There's a progression here:
  1. ad hoc network interoperability group forms.
  2. it has some success and gains some fame.
  3. it is besieged by people eager to borrow its printing press
  4. it is besieged by people who know everything about everything and
    have a duty to write or at least control all standards on
    everything including what people perversions do in the privacy
    of their own networks.

I've been complaining about #3 for many years.  Examples of #4 include
some of the more vigorous combatants in the IPv6 site local arena
and the notion that notion that nothing is out of scope.

> over IP would be out of scope.

The example I'm thinking about involved predecessors to OpenGL.
People who know about network stuff know enough to stuff bits into
wires, but that's the earier part of things like OpenGL, Microsoft's
alternative whose name eludes me, JPEG, MPEG, and so forth.

> other people who claim  that he is clueless. 

The other two base their claims on their own greater expertise and
wouldn't dream of suggesting that they are not well suited for
standardizing whatever it is.

>                                           It's not uncommon  for a WG to

Please name an example of such a case.  I have seen WG chairs and
others use brute force and out-of-scope arguments to halt nonsense,
but I've never seen "we don't know enough" work.  Often the brutal WG
chairs say they don't think the WG knows enough, but it's the scope
arguments that carry the day.

Sheesh!--next you'll be telling us that you never heard the phrase
"out of scope" before last week.

---

From: Simon Woodside <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 02:30:10 -0400

>> IETF does not standardize those applications.

Yes, and towards a possibly more contentious application, see Voice 
over IP. Lots of VoIP work is being done without involving the internet 
at all. Used by telecoms for telecoms applications, where "best effort" 
isn't good enough because it needs to keep working when the power goes 
out. IP, yes, Internet, no.

Against that you have "voice over internet" which is AKA "voice chat" 
and already abounds in true internet p2p apps like iChat, GnomeMeeting, 
and some programs on that other OS. These run on the public internet 
and benefit from the IETF design paradigms like edge-to-edge (aka 
end2end) and best effort but also have to accept the relevant drawbacks.

simon

> companies

--
www.simonwoodside.com :: www.openict.net :: www.semacode.org
                     99% Devil, 1% Angel

---

From: masataka ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 16:42:58 +0900

Simon Woodside;

> Yes, and towards a possibly more contentious application, see Voice over 
> IP. Lots of VoIP work is being done without involving the internet at 
> all. Used by telecoms for telecoms applications, where "best effort" 

Why, do you think, the Internet may stop working when the power
goes out?

It should not, which is required to certain ISPs by regulation at
least in Japan.

> and some programs on that other OS. These run on the public internet and 
> benefit from the IETF design paradigms like edge-to-edge (aka end2end) 
> and best effort but also have to accept the relevant drawbacks.

"voice chat"? Are you assuming PCs?

POTS telephone devices and terminal adaptors is the natural way
of "voice over the Internet".

Note that end to end architecture means ultimate availability of
fate sharing.

						Masataka Ohta

PS

According to the end to end principle, end user equipments should
have their own power backup, of course, which is also the case with
ISDN TA or cellular phone devices. Then, with multihoming, your
connection is a lot more robust than that of a single telephone
company.

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:10:35 -0400

> "out of scope" before last week. 

Sure I have.  There's  hardly a piece of work done by  the IETF that someone
hasn't claimed to  be out of scope.   It's just that the phrase  is not used
consistently.  If  we look at the  historical facts about the  work that the
IETF has traditionally taken on, it's hard to draw any conclusion other than
that anything  is in  scope which  promotes and facilitates  the use  of the
Internet and of IP infrastructure.  And I think that's exactly what the IETF
should be doing.

> The example I'm thinking about involved predecessors to OpenGL. 

As this example  doesn't even involve communication over  a network, I would
agree that it  is out of scope.   But that's a rather extreme  case, most of
the contentious areas do involve communications over an IP infrastructure.

> Often the brutal  WG chairs say they don't think the  WG knows enough, but
> it's the scope arguments that carry the day. 

I've never had  much luck myself with scope arguments,  unless they could be
backed up with an argument either that the center of expertise is elsewhere,
or that the topic has no bearing on IP.  Of course, people will sometimes be
willing  to  agree  that  the  center  of  expertise  is  elsewhere  without
necessarily agreeing that they themselves aren't experts ;-) Sometimes scope
arguments are merely  face-saving ways of saying "we don't  know what we are
doing".  Other times, scope arguments are merely "polite" ways of saying "we
don't think  you know what  you are doing".   You almost never  hear someone
saying "that sounds like a really  good idea, but unfortunately it is out of
scope".

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 09:35:18 -0600 (MDT)

> consistently.  

That's true.

>                If  we look at the  historical facts about the  work that the

That's wrong.  At best it's meaningless.  For example it supports
lobbying Congress.

> agree that it is out of scope.   ...

It was out of scope, but not because it did not involve putting graphics
stuff over UDP or TCP, because it did.  My fellow employees in SGI's
network group and I breathed a sigh of releaf when Ron returned from
an IETF meeting to report that "out of scope" had carried the day
against other IETF participants who thought that knowing people who
knew about Nagle and congestion control and avoidance was enough to
design graphics remote procedure calls or similar.  It's not that
other examples such as X couldn't have used more network knowledge to
avoid problems (e.g. the mouse stuff), but that the network stuff is
the tail of that and many other dogs.  Because of my employement
history, I may know a little more about how to do graphics in general
or over IP networks than many IETF participants, but I know that I'm
abjectly completely utterly incompetent for doing exactly what the
IETF started to do in that case.

> saying "that sounds like a really  good idea, but unfortunately it is out of

Yes, with the proviso that you mean you usually don't hear people really
meaning that last sentence.  You certainly hear those words a lot.

If "out of scope" were removed as an acceptable reason to not do things,
then you would never squelch bad efforts.

I suspect the whole effort of defining IETF charters or missions is
a very bad idea.  It's often better to not spell things out, but to
rely on the good judgement of the people running the show.

---

From: mark seery <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 09:03:14 -0700

Scoping is certainly used successfully as an argument at the WG level, 
through the more common pronnouncement "....that would require a change 
to the charter.." Scoping aids WGs in being able to move the ball 
forward in the direction of predfined goals, and hence is a process aid. 
This is scoping at a micro level. I would think that the role of mission 
is to provide scoping at a macro level, the kind of scoping that 
determines whether a WG is established in the first place or not.

More importantly I would suggest, the simple requirement for making 
binary decisions about whether something is in scope or not is necessary 
but not sufficient. An institution surely needs some way to guide its 
priorities as well. So one could for example agree with Eric's 
definition of what the IETF's mission is, but once that is done, what 
then guides the priorities of the IETF? I think you will find this to be 
at the heart of the debate:

scoping=>smaller workload=>focused differentiation in the standards 
marketplace+better quality output.

Every entity must decide what it is going to do uniquly better than any 
other entity. This is the purpose of mission. Generic catchall missions 
do not help entities keep the eye on that particular ball.

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 10:18:28 -0700

> [OpenGL example]
> It's not that other examples such as X couldn't have used more network knowledge to

Great scope example.  The issue for OpenGL, however, demonstrates a gap 
in as much as the developers would probably have liked something like 
dccp so that they could use a library to get Nagle, backoff, etc.  While 
we're a wire protocol sort of a group, we all should realize the 
importance of generality and good library support ;-)

> then you would never squelch bad efforts.

An effort isn't bad because it's out of scope.  An effort is bad because 
it's bad, and we invest our faith in the IESG that they will use good 
judgment to catch bad efforts.

If anyone on the IESG does not feel empowered to say "no" they should 
not be on the IESG.  WG chairs need to vet their own group's work first, 
of course.  And we could certainly do a better job on that.

Eliot

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:50:47 -0600 (MDT)

> From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>

> of course.  And we could certainly do a better job on that.

There's a difference between feeling empowered to say "no" and having
the power to say no and make it stick or even just not be forced to
waste time in bureaucratic appeals.

What's the purpose of this "IETF mission statement" effort?  If it
involved better specifications of what the IETF doesn't do, I'd be
happy.  Instead it seems to involve replacing reasons to say "no"
with content-free blanket authorizations like "for the kids."

One might have hoped that "mission statement" would be a red flag to
more participants.  When was the last time you heard of an effort to
write a "mission statement" that wasn't fodder for "Dilbert"?  It's
good decide what you're trying to do and even better if you figure it
out befre you start, but "mission statement" seems to inevitably
produce worse than useless statements like "promote and facilitate
the use  of the Internet and of IP infrastructure."

That a IETF "mission statement" is being crafted at this late date
is a very bad sign about the likely result of that crafting and the
state of the IETF.

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 11:12:01 -0700

Vernon,

I'm not much for mission statements either.  But it's easy to fall into 
a "Dilbert" view of the world, even when such things might actually help.

I think the intent is to derive from some community consensus on goals 
how to evolve the organization.  And we are at a crossroads.  Either we 
pretty much limit our scope to a more confined area, or we need to grow. 
  And growing is painful.  It involves changing of responsibilities, 
delegation, and the like.  If a mission statement serves as a point of 
consensus from which the IETF management can march, I'm all for it, in 
principle.

Of course, it has to have sufficient substance that one can in fact 
derive a direction for management of the organization.

Eliot

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 19:34:32 -0400 (EDT)

> community values, this diserves comment/debate, IMHO.

I've noticed that the people who claim to have the most clue, frequently
don't, and the people who claim most to be acting in the interests of the
community, aren't.

Clue has to do with being right, and time always reveals who and what is
right.  It is not always immediately apparent who is right. But the one
with the "clue" will be shown to have been right later on.

Community has to do with democratic, common interests. It is always
interesting that the people who are most shrill about "the interests
community" often want to exclude most of the community from the decision.

Therein lies the problem.

		--Dean

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 22:18:41 +0100

since both you and Scott pointed out this one....

> I usually say is "we're trying to help the Internet work better".

my personal belief is that the purpose of the *Internet technical 
community* is to make the Internet work better. But we have to admit to 
division of labor, and the part that we call the IETF needs to concentrate 
on standards, and the "supporting functions" of fora for experimentation 
and gathering of operational experience.

Others do the work of pulling fiber, designing routers, arresting spammers 
and detecting virii. We, gathered as the IETF, should not (IMHO) attempt to 
take over those functions. Despite the fact that it's what many of us do 
when we're not doing IETF stuff!

                Harald

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 22:27:14 +0100

--On 16. oktober 2003 13:15 -0400 Eric Rosen <[email-masked]> wrote:

>> - "For the Internet" - only the stuff that is directly involved in
>> making  the Internet work is included in the IETF's scope.
>
> In other words, routing,  DNS, and Internet operations/management.
> Adopting this as  the IETF's mission  would be a  very radical change
> indeed!

I erred in describing that category. I should have used something else - it 
was not what the IESG thought it was saying in its proposed mission 
statement, so me recycling the term "for the Internet" in the bulleted list 
I made added confusion rather than clarifying. Sorry!

(I still think it's a valid point on the scale. It leaves us with a much 
smaller IETF. But some people tend to think that's a positive side.)

                   Harald

---

From: mark seery <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 10:50:50 -0700

Dean Anderson wrote:

>don't,
"...most imposters are desperate to prove that they are not what they 
are..." - Katherine Hepburn, Love Story

that said, no one has clue in everything, and in almost any one thing, 
there is almost always some one with more clue, so this too is relative.

>and the people who claim most to be acting in the interests of the
>community, aren't.
>
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."  - Samuel Johnson.

that said there is a lot that is instructive about listening to the 
ghosts from the past. lessons in open processes as an immutable value 
for example.

>with the "clue" will be shown to have been right later on
>
But the assasination has usually taken place by then. The lesson of 
almost any complex society is dare to be different, and the gods will 
exact their revenge. It takes people of courage, stupidty or independent 
wealth to truly express what they think. That is why secret ballots 
exist in many democracies - it allows a broader range of non-stupid 
people to express their opinion (all beit on a narrow decision criteria).

>community" often want to exclude most of the community from the decision.
Common interests I agree, which I think is probably the crux of the 
mission discussion. Whether a "statement" or any other single instrument 
is sufficient to cross this bridge is fair game for discussion. But 
undoubtely, IMHO, it is the definition, articulation, and recognition of 
what the common interest is that is the problem at hand. For example, I 
don't think IEEE 802.3 have any problems understanding what their common 
interest is - the propogation of Ethernet technology - with no qualms 
about the commercial realities of that common interest.

What is the common interest of the IETF? Packets to the people? The 
propogation and use of IP (including Eric's expression of migrating 
applications from other technologies)? The refinement and perfection of 
connectionless networking techology? The development/standardization of 
technologies that address as many networking problem spaces as possible 
forming an umbrella under which we can throw many things by calling it 
the "Internet"?

So yes Dean, I think you elude to the central issue - what is the common 
interest, and as the community was propelled almost forceably, and 
inexorably by market forces from a world where as Randy put it 
"operators cooperated" together, in a non-commercial endeavor based on 
very non-commercial values, into a very commercial world, did the 
community ever have a chance to take a big breath, inspect what has 
happened, and where it really wants to go from here.

Given the seeminly overloaded semantics of "mission" perhaps a statement 
of "common interest" would indeed be more beneficial.

As for the democratic bit, I have been giving a lot of thought recently 
to what a democracy is or should be - as such I am not sure what 
democratic is, so I leave that piece as an exercise to the reader.

Best,......

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 18:52:37 -0400 (EDT)

> happened, and where it really wants to go from here.

Ok, here is MY opinion on the central issue:

Deployed communications systems are either military or commercial. Pure
research doesn't deploy systems.  OC-192 equipment and millions of miles
of fiber aren't cheap. Those complaining about how great things were when
they were non-commercial were preceeded by people complaining about
working for the military.

The people who don't want to service the commercial sector, and don't want
to service the military sector, really don't realistically have much of a
place in our society outside of pure research, and shouldn't be given
control over the future commercial or military applications of the
internet.

But it comes down to a question of whether science serves public policy or
whether public policy serves science. Which is the tail, and which is the
dog?  There is room for some pure science for nothing other than the sake
of pure science, but most of the research has to be done for productive
commercial or military purposes. I think this is a pretty general
statement that is as true of biotech research as it is of communications
research.  And since the internet is now vastly commercial, and
international, the leaders of the IETF ought to focus research on things
that will be commercially useful.

The present situation, in my opinion, the tail is wagging the dog.  This
should be changed.  The IETF mission should make clear what the
constituencies are, what the goals are, and what the priorities are, so
that the tail does the wagging.

It used to be that engineering and operations within a company "cooperated
together", sharing work and, of course, passwords. In small companies,
this is still be true.  But in many large telecom companies, engineering
is denied access to the production systems, and only the operations staff
can make changes.  This is necessary to ensure commercial stability, since
custom engineering changes don't scale well, and don't lead to widely
stable systems, since the custom changes may not be made on all systems.

Large groups work at arms length, even within a company, with well defined
protocols and policies regarding who can do what. Of course, there are
inevitable disagreements between engineering, operations, sales, etc.
These are resolved civilly, within the organization, and may include
appeals to senior management.  Those that know me, know that I'm usually
working in the engineering group, which means I am sometimes arguing with
the operations group for access to a newly deployed production system. The
first few times, I usually win. But I either have to stop asking or lose
these disgreements, in favor of documented troubleshooting procedures for
the benefit of improved stability. There are good reasons that practices
that might have been nice for small companies are abandoned by big
companies.  The IETF has this same issue.

Clearly, there are going to be even greater problems when many companies
come together to work on the same problems.  It is not reasonable to
expect that a few people can just "cooperate together" and work something
out for a large community.  What worked for the Internet many years ago
isn't going to work again--ever again--anymore than it would work for a
large telecom company to share passwords between engineering and
operations.

		--Dean

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 16:41:08 -0400

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

>>>>> "Harald" == Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]> writes:
    Harald> In the discussions leading up to this document, we actually had 3
    Harald> different other levels of "inclusivity" up for consideration:

  okay, I very much like these descriptions.

    Harald> - "Everything that runs over the Internet is appropriate for IETF
    Harald> standardization". 

    Harald> - "Everything that needs open, documented interoperability and
    Harald> runs over the Internet is appropriate for IETF
    Harald> standardization". 

    Harald> - "Everything that builds infrastructures on the Internet that
    Harald> needs to be open and interoperable is appropriate for IETF
    Harald> standardization". 

  These are three levels that I understand, and each seems to enclose
the next.

    Harald> - "Everything that can seriously impact the Internet is
    Harald> appropriate for IETF standardization". 

  This is very much more nebulous, because "seriously impact" is a question
of very open judgement.

] Collecting stories about my dad: http://www.sandelman.ca/cjr/ |  firewalls  [
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