On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 11:28 AM, Ted Lemon <Ted.Lemon@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
-MSK
On Nov 4, 2013, at 8:07 AM, Peter Saint-Andre <stpeter@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:Unfortunately it's pretty easy to game this by writing some running code that isn't very usable, and then claim that you are right based on the fact that you have running code and the other folks don't. I think this should certainly be considered, but it's not quite as strong an argument as is being claimed.
>> For me, "rough consensus" and "running code" should be taken
>> together, not independently. I've always taken it as "rough consensus
>> OF THOSE WITH running code".
>
> Larry, that is awesome!
Because of this, I would weight an open source implementation more heavily because it can be viewed by the community. I've found that developing an open source implementation at the same time as the draft is under development has been highly valuable to both; the running code can be inspected for quality, and what's left after all of that gets tightened thus deserves reflection in the draft revisions.
I realize it's easier to talk about open source in applications work versus the lower layers, however.
Also valuable are interoperability events; even if the source code can't be shared, bogus implementations become readily visible.
I think the output of both of those projects deserve serious consideration when evaluating consensus. If rough consensus alone is clearly in contradiction to the data provided by running code, there's something seriously wrong.