Paul Vixie wrote: >> it certainly is a problem. and yet failure to provide direction seems >> to cause even more problems. >> > > providing leadership is different from providing direction. it includes > things like unsolicited positive vision and innovation, and willingness toward > constructive criticism and guidance when solicited. it does not include > crapping all over ideas that merely sound dangerous, where the dangers are > latent, and where the harm if any would be that time is wasted. > There are lots of hazards. One of those that bugs me most is when a mediocre idea that might become a good idea with a bit of refinement, gets "crapped on" and dies a premature death, and then can't be resurrected for a decade or so because nobody wants to take the political risk. (Another one that bugs me almost as much is when a potentially good idea or insight gets killed because of some tangential discussion that diverts attention away from the potentially good idea or insight.) > providing direction is more like preventing consenting adults from doing stuff > that you would find distasteful, and it's paternalism or nannyism, and no good > has come of it in the internet field. > We probably disagree about the last part. Or maybe it's just imprecise wording on my part. I mostly view the IETF's job as providing consenting adults with good ways to do the things that they want or need to do. If we fail to provide good ways, consenting adults might (and usually do) come up with worse ways. It's not that consenting adults shouldn't be able to solve their own problems, it's that some kinds of solutions can and do cause harm for the Internet, particularly when they're widely deployed. If we can come up with better ones that are attractive enough to consenting adults, it seems like that would be doing good....presuming that having a robust and flexible Internet really is a good thing. Keith p.s. And FWIW, in the message where I said 'It's hard for me to buy the idea of there not being a "core" portion of the Internet from which all public addresses are reachable' what I meant was that I have a hard time imagining the conditions which would make it happen, not that I would try to stop it from happening. I'd be hard pressed to support it given my current understanding of it (not that either my support or opposition is worth very much). But I'd be curious to explore the idea further and see where it might lead. _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf