On 1/10/06 12:55 PM, "Burger, Eric" <eburger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Normally, I would agree, but in one area in particular where I'm active,
> RAI, I've seen it all. There has been a ton of work that was
> "interesting" and "nice to have."
I'm going to hazard a guess here and suggest that that area has
more interaction with/more interdependencies with other standards
bodies, where it's more typical to be very, very top-down. In a
number of cases those bodies have said "We need an internet
protocol that does <x>; the IETF is the organization that standardizes
internet protocols so we'll send the work there." To the extent that
the other option is to have other bodies standardizing internet
protocols I expect that's actually somewhat desirable. If the
alternative were that the work went on hold until something had something
that was technically acceptable and reasonably mature, what would
happen outside the IETF? Would those other bodies go along (even though
that's not how they work, themselves) or would they start producing
more internet protocols?
On the upside, one considerable benefit to the way the IETF does
its work, I think, is that it's usually pretty difficult to do
the kind of horse trading ("I'll agree to your unnecessary feature
if you'll agree to my unnecessary feature") that sometimes takes
place elsewhere.
Melinda
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