On Apr 9, 2010, at 1:21 AM, Hadriel Kaplan wrote:
We can all claim our environment doesn’t change our views, but
that’s hard to reconcile with human behavior research.
Regardless, I think even you’d agree that one’s views on technical
issues can easily change if, for example, one were to switch from
working for a customer/user to a manufacturer.
For example, my company has hired numerous folks for their technical
competence or experiences from other sectors of the VoIP industry,
who changed some of their views on certain technical issues in SIP
or RTP once they learned the issues we have to face on a daily
basis. Issues related to interoperability, or hardware vs.
software, or scalability and performance – issues that they either
didn’t take into consideration or had different assumptions for,
when they were “users” running the gear or were working in a
different SIP “world”. And working on IETF mechanisms is not only
about purely technical arguments – it’s about pragmatism as well,
and what one finds pragmatic can easily change based on the
environment.
That's fair. I would expect somebody to learn new things from their
new employer, and they might well change their minds, over time, about
positions they once held. Hopefully they'll know why they changed
their mind, and be willing to share this rationale. I like to think
I'm willing to change my mind (assuming I can find it to somewhere) if
I get new information.
But to go 180 degrees overnight just because of an affiliation change
and instructions from the new boss is not appropriate.
Think of it as "love" versus "labor". IETF work is something you just
have to love to do well. Going through the motions of love because
somebody paid you is labor, We even have a good English word for that
sort of labor: prostitution. I might have an affair with a conflicting
idea. I might even break off the relationship with my currently-held
technical position and elope with the new idea. But I sure hope it's
because I've fallen in love with the new idea, not because somebody
paid me to cheat on the idea I thought was right.
--
Dean Willis
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