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At 04:26 AM 1/17/2004, Pekka Savola wrote:
>"The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant, and
>timely standards for the Internet."
I think I would state it in these words:
"The Internet Engineering Task Force provides a forum for the
discussion and development of white papers and specifications
for the engineering issues of the Internet."
NANOG her sisters might argue that they are also engineering fora, and I
will agree; they deal with operational engineering, where the IETF deals
with more of the protocol issues. I don't think that particularly
denigrates either organization.
From my perspective, it is less about "standards" than it is about
"specifications" and various contributions improving our understanding. For
the same reason, this needs to not be a discussion of whether it is the
vendors or the users of their products; the real value of the IETF is that
both are present and the opinions of both are treated as having value.
Lets take an example. I have been involved in QoS work, and there have been
a number of specifications written on the subject; much of that started
with white papers, including especially
0896 Congestion control in IP/TCP internetworks. J. Nagle.
Jan-06-1984. (Format: TXT=26782 bytes) (Status: UNKNOWN)
0970 On packet switches with infinite storage. J. Nagle. Dec-01-1985.
(Format: TXT=35316 bytes) (Status: UNKNOWN)
The first of these is very operational in nature, and is posed by a user of
the technology. The second, by the same author, is far more academic in
nature, and was seminal in the development of a variety of ideas relating
to QoS in the succeeding decade. But it originates with a very real and
very damaging operational problem, that of BSD 4.1's predilection to TCP
Silly Window Syndrome and an operator's desire to minimize the impact of
that on competing data traffic.
To leave white papers and internet drafts, many of which are never
published as RFCs and a relatively small portion ever become standards,
out, and to leave the discussion part out is, I think, to leave out much of
the real value of the IETF. Yes, both of those predate the IETF as we now
know it, but had the IETF existed then, they would have been very
appropriate in it. Today's counterparts include papers like some I
currently have posted (not intending to self-aggrandize, but they're the
one's I know most quickly). The posting of questions, problems, and ideas
is perhaps *the* key part; standards are from my perspective only one of
the products, and perhaps a byproduct.
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