Subject: Jabber BOF afterthoughts

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 18:18:30 +0300

Hi Folks,

I happened to be at the Jabber BOF, which since has turned out to be a hot topic, at least judging from the discussions at the IESG plenary. As far as I understood, the objectives of the Jabber community were, that they mainly wanted a place for the protocol documentation to be published, and needed some expert review and help in sorting out the security services for the protocol. I didn't see an overwhealming desire to release the control for the development of the protocol to the IETF, but I may have misinterpreted things.

My perhaps a rather simplistic suggestion at the BOF was that the Jabber community submit their protocol specifications to the IESG to be published as Informational RFCs. After an addmittedly quick skim through the I-Ds, in my opinion they seemed to describe a pretty mature protocol which arguably works. And my understanding of the IETF process has also been that the IESG does commit to a fairly thorough review for even documents intended as Informational, i.e., give expert review, possibly referring to relevant WGs in the process.

The answer to this suggestion at the BOF was, that the Informational would get blocked because of an existing IETF WG working on the same area of Instant Messaging and Presence. I was surprised to see that this same issue didn't seem to block a Standards Track approach.

Why is that? After all, the Informational RFC should work equally well for the Jabber community, and would even allow them to retain control for the development of the protocol. I understand the Internet Relay Chat is in fact Informational, but that doesn't seem to have hampered its adoption in the Internet. 

My point finally is, that perhaps the IETF should embrace these entrant application layer protocols as Informational RFCs, rather than applying the "we will assimilate you" paradigm to them. ;)

Cheers,
Aki

---

From: Carl Malamud <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 22:41:03 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Aki -

> I happened to be at the Jabber BOF, which since has turned out to be a hot topic, at least judging from the discussions at the IESG plenary. As far as I understood, the objectives of the Jabber com…

Hmmm ... I was at that BOF and heard a very different message.  On change control, I heard "yes, we want to
release change control to the IETF" repeated many times.  That question was thrust at the presenters repeatedly, 
and the answer each time was a consistent "yes."

I also heard that there were quite a few things that people felt should be worked on.  I think security was
brought up first, and it seemed to me that the discussions were so heated that perhaps there wasn't time for
measured discussion as to the other things.  

So, while I agree that informational RFCs are one way to go, I also heard a group of developers both
within the IETF and some that are new to the IETF wanting to do some work on asynchronous message
passing in XML.  I know that development of those mechanisms will be quite useful for the work that
I do and I suspect that is the case for quite a few other people.  This certainly isn't a rubber-stamp,
"get the IETF imprint" effort, and a working group makes perfect sense to me.  The protocol is mature in
some respects, but there is still quite a bit of work to do and it is the kind of work we do in the
IETF.  The Jabber developers certainly shouldn't be penalized for having working code and real users.

Regards,

Carl

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 13:06:30 -0500

I am speaking as the person who chaired the Jabber BOF. I should note 
that I have no personal interest in seeing it go forward.

On 7/18/02 at 6:18 PM +0300, [email-masked] wrote:

>As far as I understood, the objectives of the Jabber community were, 
>that they mainly wanted a place for the protocol documentation to be 
>published, and needed some expert review and help in sorting out the 
>security services for the protocol.

That was part of the objective. However, the Jabber community has a 
good deal more work to do on the XMPP protocol and wants not only a 
place to publish and get review, but a place to do that work. In 
addition, they need some organizational structure to get that work 
moving forward; the IETF seemed to them a good place to get that 
structure.

>I didn't see an overwhealming desire to release the control for the 
>development of the protocol to the IETF, but I may have 
>misinterpreted things.

As was stated at the IESG plenary, it was absolutely clear to most of 
us that the folks in the room were perfectly willing to release 
change control. It was indicated that some people in the Jabber 
community might offer resistance to that idea, but that all of the 
main players were on board and the others could "be convinced". I'm 
at a loss to understand how people heard this differently.

>My perhaps a rather simplistic suggestion at the BOF was that the 
>Jabber community submit their protocol specifications to the IESG to 
>be published as Informational RFCs. After an addmittedly quick skim 
>through the I-Ds, in my opinion they seemed to describe a pretty 
>mature protocol which arguably works.

This is OK insofar as it goes, but what's the point? The protocol 
needs work, the people currently working on the protocol wish to 
improve it, especially with regard to security and 
internationalization, and they are willing to work in the IETF. Why 
shouldn't we just get them to Proposed Standard inside a working 
group?

If the only purpose of the Jabber folks was to publish what they've 
got, then Informational is correct. But that's not what's going on.

>And my understanding of the IETF process has also been that the IESG 
>does commit to a fairly thorough review for even documents intended 
>as Informational, i.e., give expert review, possibly referring to 
>relevant WGs in the process.

It seems to me that the IESG doesn't need additional work like this. 
At least if a WG were formed, a WG chair and the rest of the IETF 
would have a chance to review this document before it got to the IESG.

>The answer to this suggestion at the BOF was, that the Informational 
>would get blocked because of an existing IETF WG working on the same 
>area of Instant Messaging and Presence.

I don't remember this response, but as far as I know, it is simply 
incorrect, for the reasons you noted among others. Perhaps this was a 
response to publishing it as a Propsed Standard without having a 
working group? That might encounter the problem, leaving aside the 
issue of whether it should.

>My point finally is, that perhaps the IETF should embrace these 
>entrant application layer protocols as Informational RFCs, rather 
>than applying the "we will assimilate you" paradigm to them. ;)

But what do we do with the folks who *want* to be assimilated? 
Anyway, given that they actually want to get work done under the 
auspices of the IETF, I see no justification for turning them away.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
QUALCOMM Incorporated

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 13:14:24 -0700

At 01:06 PM 7/20/2002 -0500, Pete Resnick wrote:
>As was stated at the IESG plenary, it was absolutely clear to most of us 
>that the folks in the room were perfectly willing to release change 
>control. It was indicated that some people in the Jabber community might 
>offer resistance to that idea, but that all of the main players were on 
>board and the others could "be convinced". I'm at a loss to understand how 
>people heard this differently.

Because they seem to think that any utterance other than a pure, simple 
"yes" is a pure, simple "no".

The idea that the dialogue between Jabber and the IETF is a negotiation in 
which the IETF needs to do its part in this sequence, as much as the Jabber 
side need to do theirs, is somehow not occurring to such folk.

>>would get blocked because of an existing IETF WG working on the same area 
>>of Instant Messaging and Presence.
>
>I don't remember this response, but as far as I know, it is simply incorrect,

I, too, heard no such response and agree that such an assertion about IETF 
process is straight out wrong.  There are no rules against competing efforts.

In fact the IETF does better when it allows each effort to proceed on its 
own than it does when trying to squelch alternatives.  Folks who bother to 
look at the pattern of IETF decisions should be able to discern this 
inconvenient reality without too much effort.

d/

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

---

From: Randall Gellens <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2002 18:00:21 -0700

> auspices of the IETF, I see no justification for turning them away.

Given that this is a deployed product, I tend to agree.  The work is
going to get done; we may as well help it to get done as well as
possible.

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 08:18:50 -0700

> Given that this is a deployed product, I tend to agree.  The work
> is going to get done; we may as well help it to get done as well
> as possible.

i have no useful knowledge or opinion on the actual technical
subject, so my points may already have been answered.  but the
reasons given above seem sufficient to put us in the paperclip
standards making business.  i submit that relevance, expertise,
non-conflict with other standards groups, change control, etc. are
important criteria.

randy

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 09:05:06 -0700

At 08:18 AM 7/23/2002 -0700, Randy Bush wrote:
>  but the
>standards making business.

Indeed.

Proven technical base, motivated workers and ready market for products 
using a specification.

Those certainly are a lousy basis for forming an IETF working group.

d/

----------

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 11:30:41 -0500

On 7/23/02 at 8:18 AM -0700, Randy Bush wrote:

>>is going to get done; we may as well help it to get done as well as 
>>possible.
>

I certainly agree that relevance, expertise, change control, etc. are 
important criteria for the IESG to review. I believe a review of the 
discussion here and the minutes of the BOF session will reveal that 
each of those criteria are well met: This is an application protocol 
deployed on the Internet, folks with the relevant expertise in the 
Jabber community and in the IETF community have expressed the desire 
to work on the problems with the protocol, and none of them are 
asserting the desire to have change control lie anywhere but within 
the IETF.

However, I'm not clear why "non-conflict with other standards groups" 
is a criteria. Care to explain?

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:[email-masked]>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 10:01:25 -0700

>> but the reasons given above seem sufficient to put us in the paperclip

you have an impressive talent for omitting text, twisting people's
words, etc.  you should run for political office.

i also said

>> i submit that relevance, expertise, non-conflict with other
>> standards groups, change control, etc. are important criteria.

randy

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 10:09:01 -0700

> each of those criteria are well met

cool!

> is a criteria. Care to explain?

sure.  i'll even do it for free!  :-)

we don't make ethernet standards, ieee does.  we don't make sdh
standards, itu does.  etc. etc.  in this case, i would be careful
not to encroach on w3's toes.  i have no idea if we would be or
not.

as to why we are careful not to step on other sdos' toes, well we
do not want them to step on ours.  there have been incidents of
this kind of issue with other sdos, and we try to be careful.  make
sense?

randy

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 10:13:32 -0700

> >> standards groups, change control, etc. are important criteria.

Randy,

Thanks for the ad hominem.  For my own part, I had refrained from noting 
your own accomplishment at invention.

There was nothing in the note you were supposedly responding to that hinted 
at the IETF's being a rubber stamp, yet that is the interpretation that you 
chose to create for it.

And you forgot to note that besides being ignorant of the technical issues, 
you apparently had no knowledge of the process-related history of this and 
were, therefore, ignorant of the fact that all of the issues you were 
voicing concern about had been addressed quite thoroughly.

Yet still you chose to post such a constructive, informed note.

Silly me, I thought area directors were expected to be careful about their 
activities concerning a matter they will be expected to pass judgement on, 
especially one about which there has already been such stellar, public IETF 
process achievement.

d/

----------

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 10:16:24 -0700

thanks for your ever-constructive contribution dave.

for actual content, see my conversation with pete.

randy

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 17:48:22 +0100

At 08:18 AM 7/23/02 -0700, Randy Bush wrote:
>...  i submit that relevance, expertise,

Mostly, that seems quite reasonable.  But I'm interested to understand what 
constitutes "non conflict" here.

#g

-------------------
Graham Klyne
<[email-masked]>

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 10:43:48 -0700

> Mostly, that seems quite reasonable.  But I'm interested to understand
> what constitutes "non conflict" here.

was my reply to pete on this sufficiently helpful?  if not, i will
beg the help of our sdo lawyers like scott, so you had better be
happy with what i said :-).

sometimes we have X come to us to move their work through our
process after they have not gotten what they wanted from the more
appropriate sdo.  so, if we were to take it on, we could be badly
stepping on someone else's turf.  what goes around comes around,
and we don't want sdo turf wars.  do we want itu to 'help' with
smtp?

i have no idea if this is an issue here, as i am not in contact
with w3c or whomever else.  i expect you, pete, etc. will know far
better than i if we are nearing hot water here.  i am just asking
you to please be conscious of the issue.

fwiw i have nothing against jabber.  some of my best friends jabber
:-).  i am even trying to get a secure jabber server working (and
am hitting problems).  i am just concerned about process and
precedent.

randy

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 14:23:11 -0400

Randy Bush wrote:

>not to encroach on w3's toes.
>  
>
What would Jabber have to do with the W3C? It's a protocol, not a 
document format.  Furthermore, we already have two efforts in this 
space; if the W3C were likely to object, they would've by now.

-- 
/========================================================\
|John Stracke                    |Principal Engineer     |
[email-masked]   |Incentive Systems, Inc.|
|http://www.incentivesystems.com |My opinions are my own.|
|========================================================|
|This is the .sig that says... Ni!                       |
\========================================================/

---

From: "Marshall Rose" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 11:51:26 -0700

randy - hi. i'm a little confused about the exchanges this morning, so bear
with me.

> you to please be conscious of the issue.

this is a fair point. there is no w3c effort on instant messaging, while
soap is certainly a w3c effort, i think most folks would be hard-pressed to
find much overlap between it and jabber, other than the fact that they both
use xml at different points in their stack.

> am hitting problems).  i am just concerned about process and

send me a private note explaining the difficulty, and maybe i can help.

/mtr

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 11:50:09 -0700

> On this point I'm in total agreement with Randy ... I've still have a 
> problem with this ...why come to IETF with this work ?

note that i do not have the expertise to have a position on this
with respect to jabber.  this whole sub-thread was really my
*process* reaction to randall's

    > Given that this is a deployed product, I tend to agree.  The
    > work is going to get done; we may as well help it to get done
    > as well as possible.

being quite unbounded.  and i suggested some bounds

    > relevance, expertise, non-conflict with other standards
    > groups, change control, etc. are important criteria.

i was merely raising a formal process issue, and not necessarily an
issue i have with jabber per se.

> it is perfectly reasonable to kill off or delay WG charting
> because of the current IESG work load, especially in the
> applications area.

i don't buy this.  if the wannabe-wg is appropriate ietf work, the
folk are there with their homework done and ready to roll, the
drafts are in play with change control in the ietf, there is an
active constructive mailing list, and a charter is close to being
good, then iesg load is no excuse.  if this is a problem, then we
need to, and will, fix it.

randy

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 11:58:53 -0700

> space; if the W3C were likely to object, they would've by now.

i do not know how much clearer i could be than

>> with w3c or whomever else.  i expect you, pete, etc. will know
>> far better than i if we are nearing hot water here.  i am just
>> asking you to please be conscious of the issue.

randy

---

From: Pete Resnick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 14:39:48 -0500

On 7/23/02 at 10:09 AM -0700, Randy Bush wrote:

>standards, itu does.  etc. etc.

Ah, you're talking about competing with other standards bodies, not 
groups within the IETF! OK, that I understand.

>in this case, i would be careful not to encroach on w3's toes.  i 
>have no idea if we would be or not.

Everything that I've seen indicates nothing in any of the potential 
work items which would step on any W3C toes. So I think Jabber is 
cool there too.

>as to why we are careful not to step on other sdos' toes, well we do 
>not want them to step on ours.  there have been incidents of this 
>kind of issue with other sdos, and we try to be careful.  make sense?

Absolutely.

pr

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 20:55:59 +0100

>am hitting problems).  i am just concerned about process and

In the IETF that I know, the issue is not so much one of process and 
precedent, but core competence.  And if that isn't clear, or is distributed 
across organizations, there are plenty of examples of collaborative efforts.

#g

-------------------
Graham Klyne
<[email-masked]>

---

From: Richard Shockey <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 14:46:55 -0400

On this point I'm in total agreement with Randy ... I've still have a
problem with this ...why come to IETF with this work ?... this is XML
messaging ...why didnt the Jabber community choose OASIS or W3C..which
strikes me as a more logical home for these kind of things and there is a
larger community of XML expertise there.

Just because there is a community that has a good idea and wants to work on
it does not mean the IETF should take it on.  Randy is right about process
and precedent..... we kill off BOF's all the time for any number of
irrational reasons even when there is a strongly committed core or people
willing to work the issue. And, contrary to popular opinion,  it is
perfectly reasonable to kill off or delay WG charting because of the
current IESG work load, especially in the applications area.

That said ..at the BOF the Jabber folks remarked and I pointed out that
there may be a larger issue of asynchronous XML messaging that may or may
not have relevance in the IETF.  Patrik's comments at the plenary were
quiet appropriate that we are beginning to deal with lots of XML things and
how we move these things around and where these fit into the general IETF
view of Architecture is rather relevant.

Jabber MAY or MAY NOT be part of that ..I don't know and I say that as a
certifiable SIP bigot and on that basis I'm personally willing to keep a
open mind on the issue.

I'm still trying to discover how Jabber might be complimentary to SIMPLE in
much the same way IMAP is complementary to POP3. ( ok maybe a bad analogy).

But I wish that those proponents of a Jabber WG would understand that some
of us in the SIP community have some real concerns about the effect or
perceptions in the marketplace that chartering this work in the IETF might
have. They are real and probably cloud our thinking ..but simply dismissing
them as irrelevant or stupid is not going to help gain consensus on
chartering this work.

I'll be real blunt here the difference between asynchronous XML messaging
and asynchronous XML signalling is really fine and that really worries me.

>:-).

ditto ...blabber, slobber depending on time of day..

>i am even trying to get a secure jabber server working (and

Richard Shockey, Senior Manager, Strategic Technology Initiatives
NeuStar Inc.
45980 Center Oak Plaza   Bldg 8     Sterling, VA  20166
1120 Vermont Ave NW Suite 400 Washington DC 20005
Voice +1 571.434.5651 Cell : +1 314.503.0640,  Fax: +1 815.333.1237
<mailto: [email-masked]> or
<mailto: [email-masked]>
<http://www.neustar.biz>
<http://www.enum.org>
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 23:21:40 +0100 (BST)

I'm just waiting for someone to log a workgroup chat session and send
it in for publishing as minutes or a draft.

L.

XML! XML! it's XML! whatever happened to Java?

<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/><[email-masked]>

---

From: "Marshall Rose" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 16:55:10 -0700

[ lots of stuff deleted that was designed to distract... ]

> them as irrelevant or stupid is not going to help gain consensus on

richard - whether simple succeeds or fails will have nothing to do with
whether the ietf helps out the jabber folks. each will succeed or fail on
their own merits.

i am at a loss to understand the extraordinary amount of fear and loathing
from the simple camp that i witnessed in the jabber bof. i could be more
unkind here, but i'm making an extraordinary effort to be inoffensive.

regardless, there are numerous precedents to invalidate your position that
we can work on only one. the most obvious is cpim, which explicitly
acknowledges the existence of many.

however, if you insist that there can be only one, then perhaps the logical
thing to do is for the iesg to put eveything on hold while we do a detailed
analysis of the technical merits of the various approaches.

oh, wait, we already did that, and the result was that we did cpim. go back
two paragraphs.

for myself, i think that the simple folks would be much better served by
focusing on their work product than on political posturing.

/mtr

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 21:29:51 -0400

> XML! XML! it's XML! whatever happened to Java?

Any hammer, once it's used for pounding enough screws and bolts, starts
looking rather dented and abused.  The obvious solution is to buy an new
bright shiny hammer with which to pound screws and bolts.

(Note - I think XML and Java are both *wonderful* for certain tasks - but
if there's anything I've learned in 20+ years of this, it's that *nothing*
is The Next Great Thing To Fix Everything)
-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

---

From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 12:03:47 +0100 (BST)

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Graham Klyne wrote:

> At 11:21 PM 7/23/02 +0100, Lloyd Wood wrote:
> That happens all the time in W3C working groups.

explains a lot.

L.

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 07:06:04 +0100

#g

-------------------
Graham Klyne
<[email-masked]>

---

From: John Stracke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 09:16:54 -0400

Richard Shockey wrote:

> this is XML

But using XML is not the hard part.  Using XML is nearly trivial; it's 
just an encoding.  Protocols are hard, and that's where the IETF has 
expertise.

---

From: Richard Shockey <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 11:07:23 -0400

A
>acknowledges the existence of many.

Understood.. but Marshall I never wrote there should only be one. I am
keeping a open mind on this as I noted in my previous message. I just have
reasonable concern, as a SIP bigot, that multiple IM/P protocols coming out
of the IETF could cause confusion in the market and that would be a bad
thing for IM/P in general. I could be wrong.

The contrary argument, of course, is that the SIP architecture of uniting
multiple forms of real-time communications is so inherently powerful that
it can withstand any competing approach.

>analysis of the technical merits of the various approaches.

Again ... I'm not dismissing the idea of working on Jabber ..ist just that
there may be some larger issues here  surrounding the general case of XML
transport as we discussed at the BOF and  Patrik raised in the plenary.

Pete asked at the BOF ..."well could you support the work if it was part of
a larger effort on XML transport"  Well my answer to that is yes.

>focusing on their work product than on political posturing.

Well I suspect we are much closer to agreement than you might imagine and I
wholeheartedly agree with the comments posted by my colleague Jon Peterson
on the matter...and after all he is the co-chair of SIMPLE.