On 8/2/24 17:42, Watson Ladd wrote:
If we can spend less time going over old specifications with fine-toothed combs, maybe we could start to address major deficiencies in the Internet architecture.I don't think time spent on -NNNbis and errata fixing is what keeps us from addressing deficiencies, or even other important work. Generally the effort goes where the people put it in, and that's a function of what seems important. To the extent you think something must be done, the only way to do it is to do it yourself and get people motivated to contribute. When we say there's no standards police, what we mean is that people do things to solve problems they have.
One of the great things about the Internet is that to a large degree, it permits people to solve their own problems. In many cases, it allows innovation without requiring permission.
But this isn't true of absolutely everything. There are some
things that can't be improved on an incremental basis.
Anyway, my main point was that we could (IMO safely) streamline the portion of our standards process that follows Proposed Standards, and at least in some cases, minimize the effort that's currently being spent (sometimes) to upgrade Proposed Standards to full Standards, and also minimize the bike shedding about Historic.
And perhaps it's not true all the time, but I have literally seen groups labor for years to update existing specifications in an effort to advance them to Full standard, often without making really significant changes.
IETF's resources are finite, and that includes both the amount of competent volunteer labor available to do the discussing and editing and reviewing of specifications, and also the amount of work required to manage those efforts.
Keith
