Subject: RE: Working Group chartering

From: "Burger, Eric" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 12:55:31 -0500

Normally, I would agree, but in one area in particular where I'm active,
RAI, I've seen it all.  There has been a ton of work that was
"interesting" and "nice to have."

Also, I am a big proponent of microeconomics, which would have rational
actors only put forth and push stuff clearly needed for products.
HOWEVER, in the "highest" IETF fashion, I've regularly seen multiple
folks from the same company arguing against each other in the working
groups.  I would have much more appreciated their working out their
differences at home and bring in their 'corporate' position :)

Likewise, often I see folks bring something that "needs to be solved" to
the IETF.  This can generate lots of interest, especially if the person
with the problem is a customer.  However, that still doesn't mean the
solution space is in the realm of the IETF.

-----Original Message-----
From: Gray, Eric [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2006 12:03 PM
To: Burger, Eric
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: Working Group chartering

Eric,

--- [SNIP ---
--> IMHO, *way* too many I*E*TF work groups get chartered based on
--> an idea. We then spend tons of resources on figuring out if the
--> idea will work. We produce lots of half-baked documents with 
--> little basis in working code.  Then folks try implementing 
--> what's been spec'ed, find it doesn't work, but then find a ton 
--> of resistance to change, because the specs are three years old 
--> and "we don't want to break draft-mumble-05 implementations."
--> 
--> If something is an idea, let's make it politically acceptable 
--> for the "work" to be done in the I*R*TF first.
--> 
--- [SNIP] ---

I think this is a gross mischaraterization of current practice in
the IETF generally - however many exceptions we might find.

Usually - at least among those of us that work for a living - we
would not bring something to the IETF unless we were already in
the process of implementing it and we have been encouraged by our
employers (or - indirectly - by our customers) to bring it to the
IETF.

When people bring ideas to the IETF that "seem like a good thing"
but aren't practical or implementable at the current time, they
are usually encouraged to take those ideas to the IRTF.

--
Eric

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 13:23:57 -0500

> "interesting" and "nice to have."

I'm going to hazard a guess here and suggest that that area has
more interaction with/more interdependencies with other standards
bodies, where it's more typical to be very, very top-down.  In a
number of cases those bodies have said "We need an internet
protocol that does <x>; the IETF is the organization that standardizes
internet protocols so we'll send the work there."  To the extent that
the other option is to have other bodies standardizing internet
protocols I expect that's actually somewhat desirable.  If the
alternative were that the work went on hold until something had something
that was technically acceptable and reasonably mature, what would
happen outside the IETF?  Would those other bodies go along (even though
that's not how they work, themselves) or would they start producing
more internet protocols?

On the upside, one considerable benefit to the way the IETF does
its work, I think, is that it's usually pretty difficult to do
the kind of horse trading ("I'll agree to your unnecessary feature
if you'll agree to my unnecessary feature") that sometimes takes
place elsewhere.

Melinda

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: 10 Jan 2006 20:05:05 -0000

>Likewise, often I see folks bring something that "needs to be solved"
>to the IETF.  This can generate lots of interest, especially if the
>person with the problem is a customer.  However, that still doesn't
>mean the solution space is in the realm of the IETF.

It seems to me that if the problem is not yet well enough understood
that we can see the path to engineer something to deal with it, it
belongs down the hall in the IRTF.

In the always exciting anti-spam arena I have been trying for over a
year to get some activity going in the ASRG on exactly this kind of
topic, where we know what the problem is but we don't understand what
the solutions are, yet.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.