> This conjecture was disturbing, but calling it a feature was > even more disturbing. After a bit of pondering, and > wondering what different groups in the IETF might mean by > "complex", my first thought was that the IETF has never, ever > solved one. For example, we do QoS in small pieces that > don't fit together well. Some claim that CIDR was such a > solution but imho it was just a tweak on what we already had. I think that it is fairly apparent that every institution has great difficulty solving complex problems. But what seems to be the real topic of discussion here is the difficulty of establishing an overaching architectural vision. This is a difficult challenge in any context, individuals who are capable of articulating such a vision are very rare, they are the type of people who are in the running for the Turing award. But even then only some of the Turing award winners/contenders I have worked with are capable of such an overarching vision. Another problem is that in the institutional context past success is frequently the cause of continuing falure. When Walt Disney ran his studio the animators never used story boards. This tradition was carried on for almost 20 years after Disney died but none of the cartoons produced as a result became classice. One of the first changes Eisner made was to introduce storyboards. After talking to the old timers he realized that Walt had always used a story board but he kept it in his head. The problem with continuing the legacy of people like Vint Cerf, Bob Metcalf, David Clark, Jon Postel is that the problems that we face today tend to be the very ones that require changes to the original overarching pronciples to be considered. To take an example from the security world, the security problems that can be solved through the end to end principle have already been solved using it. What we now face are the problems that require exceptions. The 80/20 rule is a good one, the problem is that when the 80% is solved the original triage now works against you. If you do not consider a change of approach when you come to the 20% you will have problems. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf