% --On 15. oktober 2003 12:57 -0400 Eric Rosen <erosen@cisco.com> 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).