Subject: Re: Let the market be judge (Re: accusations of cluelessness)

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:19:45 -0700 (PDT)

*> 
  *> But that's really not the point here. The role of an _engineering_ taskforce
  *> is to act like engineers, not a vanity press. Our output should be educated
  *> guidance to the wider community - created with diligence and offered with humility.
  *> We can do no more and should do no less.

Grenville,

Nicely said!!  I would like to see your motto inscribed over the
IETF portals... "We create with diligence and offer with humility".

Bob Braden

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From: mark seery <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:57:37 -0700

>IETF portals... "We create with diligence and offer with humility".
Bob, I agree this is a good ethos, which I support, and in general, the 
IETF is trending back in this direction, the discussion over the last 
~year of meatier meetings being one example of the trend in this 
direction; yours, Keith's and Grenville's expressions being others. The 
specific issue though in this case, IMO, was whether engineering was 
conflicting with pragmatics (WRT existing deployments) - happily, the OT 
thread appears to be flushing this out and moving on. Obviously, the 
long-lived tension will always be between under-engineering a solution 
and over-engineering a solution. As this subthread shows, discussing the 
philosophy  doesn't advance the ball on any one particular technical 
issue very much, only skilled engineers arguing opposing views (a good 
thing) can do that.

Best....