On Jul 24, 2006, at 8:06 AM, Todd Glassey wrote:
On Jul 24, 2006, at 7:24 AM Douglas Otis wrote:
The completion of documents, and the closing of WGs remains within
the competence of the IETF. Beyond describing the intended use
and the vetting initially achieved, there is little benefit
derived revisiting a document unless a change is required.
How so ? - this is a statement of objectivity or the lack of it
more accurately.
This was attempting to describe what remains within the realm of IETF
competency. Attempting to define which iteration of a protocol
(based upon the introductions of RFCs) is needed for interchange
within some distribution, or a company's application, or some OS
would be objective and likely lacking accuracy when done by the
IETF. After the software becomes fully debugged, the Current
protocol iteration might become Stable, but prior to compliance
testing, each company or distribution should declare which iteration
is providing Stable interchange. This declaration is beyond the
competency of the IETF, and should the IETF attempt to make
declarations of this nature, such would likely be based upon the
information provided by dominate companies or distributions. Here
the IETF becomes the IVTF. RFCs represent a continuum of change.
What is declared as Stable by distribution X will likely be of far
more value than a similar assertion attempted by the IETF.
When a change is required, the affected document should be marked
as updated or replaced, where again the intended use and the
vetting initially achieved should once again be noted.
There may be issues with that. One of the things that the IETF has
not dealt with is the use of the IETF's processes as weapons
against others with less presence or power within the IETF WG's -
the problem is that not everyone here is a nice-person - some are
actually really bad people who are here intentionally to screw
others who don't agree with them or who have opinions that are
dangerous to initiatives or the the political framework of the IETF.
Not every company fairly assesses a protocol either. There could be
a perceived advantage thwarting innovation when there is no intent to
commercially make use of it. Rather than thwarting innovation, these
efforts could be diverted onto a separate track by utilizing a
separate tracking overlay. This would allow the market to decide
whether there is value in adopting the newer track.
Bluntly the IETF has grossly failed in being either Open or Fair
and Frank these Are what need to be addressed. The IETF's processes
are best described as a twisted-fantasy through loophole land. They
don't serve to make standards honest and fair but rather impossible
for a mere mortal to participate with and that is more offensive to
the world than the nasty language I used in describing the failures
of this and the previous IETF's in coming to grips with what the
IETF has become - a haven for career standards participants who
need to be somewhere to justify their status within their sponsors.
The SRD overlay approach permits separate development tracks. This
multi-tracking ability might avoid some innovations being seen as a
threat. The specifications for email, instead of being a free list
of RFCs, becomes a compiled set of RFCs defined as Email.3. Imagine
that Email.3 is commonly seen as Stable, and Email.4 is Current.
When a small enclave wants to introduce an incompatible change based
upon Email.3, the SRD overlay could adopt a different reference name
such as Foo-mail.1. The present, somewhat simplistic, view that an
RFC is updated or replaced assumes these RFCs support just a single
track of change.
Even assuming a single track, the present system makes declaring what
is being used difficult. Knowing what is involved for a particular
protocol is only clearly defined for the present set of changes.
Standard categories are too poorly maintained to be useful. A fair
amount of effort is required to determine the sequence and dates of
the various RFC documents to determine a prior set of RFCs. When
development involves collaboration between other organizations, being
able to predict a reference earlier within the process would also be
a benefit provided by an overlay approach.
The IETF should focus upon providing serialized documents that both
support existing protocols as well as the introduction of newer
protocols. There is a need for the IETF to improve upon the tracking
of their effort. This tracking is also likely the only change that
will eventually be found beneficial. To declare something a
"standard" assumes certifications and compliance mandates. In many
cases, until some experience is obtained, the IETF is unable to state
that something can be implemented from the document and that it will
be Stable. Should the IETF even attempt to make and revise these
assessments? It seems that many of these assessments are dependent
upon the beholder. Provide a simple serialized tracking scheme and
then pay attention to what your favorite OS or distribution declares
as Stable, Deprecated, or Obsolete.
The IETF can avoid some potential trouble by retaining the
Experimental categorization within the overlay. Until enough vetting
ensures the protocol will not damage the Internet, retention of this
categorization indicates how this document is to be used. The SRD
draft provides Core, Extension, Guidance, Companion, and Experimental
categories to indicate the intended use of an RFC.
-Doug
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