> Behalf Of Brian E Carpenter > Up to a point, but there are limits to what we can do. > > We can request that the RFC Editor not publish things we > think are damaging. The IESG does this a few times a year. > Similarly, we can request that IANA not register things we > think are damaging, or at least to label them as potentially > dangerous. > > We can publish screeds about damaging practices. The IAB does > this a few times a year. > > We can try to develop non-damaging solutions for requirements > where the easy solutions are damaging, and we can try to > repair our own damage (as HTTP 1.1 repairs HTTP 1.0). > > We can try to ensure that the Internet can 'route around > damage' - that's one of the main reasons for defending the > e2e principle, for example. > > But we can't prevent people from deploying solutions that we > didn't develop, and we shouldn't even try to IMHO. Mao was wrong, the root of power is not coercion, it is persuasion. Sure the IETF can pursuade IANA not to register a code point. But if that happens it only makes things worse. There is nothing that can be done to prevent unregistered use and no real disadvantage to doing so as nobody will want to accept an official registration polluted by prior use. I do not see an argument being made that BitTorrent is worse than the alternatives that can be used. Instead there is a NIH argument that BitTorrent is in competition with multicast. I think it is important to distinguish net.stewardship from special pleading trying to use the vast political influence of the IETF as described by Brian to force consumers to adopt the anointed solution over the deployed. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf