On 2/16/2006 2:01 PM, Joe Touch wrote: > Eric A. Hall wrote: > >>On 2/15/2006 12:19 PM, Joe Touch wrote: >> >> >>>There are two different potential intentions to 'Experimental': >>> >>>1. to conduct an experiment, as Eliot notes below, i.e., >>> to gain experience that a protocol 'does good' 'in the wild' >>> >>>2. to gain experience that a protocol does no harm 'in the wild' >> >>There is a third option, which is "we are not sure how this will work, or >>if it will even work at all really, but we are confident enough in its >>design stability to release it in limited form for further study" > > That's #1 - if it doesn't provide some gain (utility to someone), > there's no point in the experiment ;-) I think #1 is closer to what we use Proposed Standard for--to "gain experience that a protocol 'does good'". The scenario I proposed is for when you know that there are upsides and downsides but you want to see which one comes out on top by exposing it to scale/weirdness that is only found in the real world -- Eric A. Hall http://www.ehsco.com/ Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/ _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf