On 20 Feb 2014, at 11:37 am, Phillip Hallam-Baker <hallam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > My main concern is the process question. I really don't care whether CBOR is a PROPOSED STANDARD or whatever. What I do care about is if I am told that I have to use it because that is the IETF standard for binary encoding. And what I care most about is the risk that this approach of 'its our ball and only we will decide who gets to play' is going to be repeated. I have to agree with Phillip on this point, and I hope the answer is uncontroversial -- that just by virtue of being an IETF standard, we don't start requiring people to use something already defined if their use case is vaguely similar. When something is a standard, it means you need to use it in the way specified; it doesn't mean you have to choose to use it, even in other standards. That's not to say we shouldn't encourage people to examine, improve, etc. existing standards when we feel that their uses can be addressed by them; it's just that we don't have a "highlander rule," and for the health of the Internet I think that's a good thing. If this is indeed the case, I think Phillip's concerns about the process are perhaps notable, but people are still free to define, use and standardise other approaches to binary JSON, so it shouldn't be an issue. Regards, -- Mark Nottingham http://www.mnot.net/