On Dec 23, 2005, at 9:18 PM, Eric Rescorla wrote:
Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Nobody is going to argue against considering really
meaningful improvements to DKIM, even if they introduce
incompatibilities,
Then why the push to have charter language designed to do exactly
that?
My opinion? Because nobody is really confident they know what other
people would consider "really meaningful improvements" and are thus
trying to "set the bar" at a level that makes them comfortable. (And
to be fair, I don't read anything in the text as saying that we'll
ignore really meaningful improvements if they're incompatible. I
suppose one could imagine a "really meaningful improvement" that isn't
"necessary for the success of the spec" but I think I would have to try
pretty hard to come up with a tangible example where A) this would
matter, and B) the text of the charter would cause the WG to do the
wrong thing.)
Whatever the charter ends up saying, one can imagine that the WG would
be completely fair and open to improvements, or that it would ignore
them all and attempt to steamroll a rubberstamping (a very smelly mixed
metaphor). The words in the charter aren't really going to make a
nickel's worth of difference either way. The power of a WG chair to
act independently of the words of a WG charter is even greater than the
power of a politician to act independently of the laws, and that's
saying a lot. People are arguing about wording that is remarkably
unimportant, in my mind. -- Nathaniel
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