Re: Review of: Characterization of Proposed Standards

[Olaf Kolkman <olaf@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 1 nov. 2013, at 01:00, SM <sm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 "Hence IETF Proposed Standards are of such quality that they
  are ready for the usual market-based product development and
  deployment efforts into the Internet."

I am not comfortable with having that text in BCP 9.  The argument up to now has been running code and that that is the line which has been used for test of quality.  A better test of quality might be someone who has not followed the working group and who can implement the specification.  There is also the IPR test.  That is also one of the issues mentioned by the audience which the document targets.

Note that the text says that they are ready for market based product development and does not proscribe a test, in fact there is also no IPR test for proposed standards. The ‘IPR test’ what happens after market deployment: did market players have no problem getting (F)RAND licenses, hence it is an important, albeit somewhat implicit, criterium in going from Proposed to Internet Standard.

Frankly, if we develop standard track document that, in general, are not ready to be put in products hen it is going to be very very difficult to explain the relevance of the IETF. Not only to the policy people but also to the people who pay us to develop standards.

And off-course it is not black and white, hence the ‘in general’ in the sentence above. In the cases where we collectively think that we are not quite there there is the escape route that we’ve put in section 4.

—Olaf

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