On Sat, 27 Oct 2007, Andrew Newton wrote: > How do you square this against working group sessions that have > obviously been packed, where previous sessions were only moderately > attended but many new faces show up in anticipation of a very > important hum? Well for starters, the drive-by hummers have to sit through the session and be present for the discussion (note I intentionally did not say listen). They have to demonstrate enough interest in the IETF process to actually pay the costs of attending the session. And under IETF process, concensus isn't determined in a F2F meeting. The IETF is supposed to be fostering the engineering of the Internet. Refusing to foster the engineering process based on religious or political or even phantom economic concerns doesn't foster better operation of the Internet. It is in the greater interest of the Internet to have ANY protocol used to define the meaning of some bits on the wires of the Internet well documented. At least three reasons come to mind .. a) I can better understand the impact of the protocol on other traffic and perhaps even document issues to the originator of the traffic if what I observe doesn't agree with the documentation AND seems to be causing my organization a problem. b) Better to know about a documented patent claim than to have it hidden and waiting to bite me when I re-invent it, etc. c) Folks concerned about security vulnerabilities have starting point for their analysis In my mind, experimental RFCs are created to allow two or more parties to participate in an experiment in a well specified context and to allow other parties to understand and comment on the experiment. Informational RFCs exist to allow pretty much anyone to document a 'private' protocol for the reasons I've noted. If an evil giant (pick your virtual enemy du jour) believes there is an advantage for them in implementing and deploying patent encumbered technology, they will do so with or without the technology being documented by the IETF. Hence, I am in favor of publishing Informational/Experimental RFCs which provide clear documentation of engineering related topics of concern to the design and operation of the Internet. Dave Morris _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf