>> it's not that cut-and-dried. it can be very costly to users to >> let the market decide. sometimes the market doesn't decide, it >> just fragments. > > So? so "let the market decide" is a lousy rule. there's no justification for it. it's just the sort of thing that someone says when he fears competition from a better product. The original focus of IETF was to create and firm-up the Internet. That war was won. You're complaining that some application-layer stuff like IM isn't as orderly as you'd like. I don't see the connection between your complaint and the original focus. Now, refining a few core protocols -- that'd be great. Trying to be the government of all protocols -- huh? The SRFI process, in the world of Scheme programming, seems to me the more utilitarian approach to working on higher-level protocols: there's nearly nothing to fight over in that process. -t _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf