On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 11:57 AM, David Meyer <dmm@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 8:08 AM, George, Wes <wesley.george@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> I’m surprised that no one has sent this out yet: >> http://gigaom.com/2014/04/12/why-i-quit-writing-internet-standards/ >> >> "Summary: After contributing to standards organizations for more than seven >> years, engineer Vidya Narayanan decided it was time to move on. Although she >> still believes that these organizations make the Internet a better place, >> she wonders about the pace of change versus the pace of organizations." >> >> My thoughts- >> >> There are some nuggets of truth in what she says in this article, and in >> some of the comments. I think that the problems are real, so there’s value >> in taking the criticism constructively, despite the fact that the author >> chose to focus on the problems without any suggestions of solutions. >> >> "while the pace at which standards are written hasn’t changed in many years, >> the pace at which the real world adopts software has become orders of >> magnitude faster." >> … >> "Running code and rough consensus, the motto of the IETF, used to be >> realizable at some point. … In the name of consensus, we debate frivolous >> details forever. In the name of patents, we never finish.” >> … >> "Unless these standards organizations make radical shifts towards >> practicality, their relevance will soon be questionable.” >> >> I don’t have too many big ideas how to fix these problems, but I’ll at least >> take a crack at it in order to spur discussion. My paraphrase of the problem >> and some discussion follows. >> >> - We’ve lost sight of consensus and are too often derailed by a vocal >> minority of those willing to endlessly debate a point. >> >> Part of the solution to that is reiterating what consensus is and is not, >> such as draft-resnick-on-consensus so that we don’t confuse a need for >> consensus with a need for unanimity. Part of the solution is IETF leadership >> helping to identify when we have rough consensus encumbered by a debate that >> will never resolve itself, without quieting actual disagreement that needs >> continued discussion in order to find a compromise. I don’t have good >> suggestions on how to make that second half better. >> >> - We don’t have nearly enough focus on running code as the thing that helps >> to ensure that we’re using our limited cycles on getting the right things >> out expediently, and either getting the design right the first time, or >> failing quickly and iterating to improve >> >> The solution here may be that we need to be much more aggressive at >> expecting any standards track documents to have running code much earlier in >> the process. The other part of that is to renew our focus on actual interop >> standards work, probably by charter or in-group feedback, shift focus away >> from BCP and info documents. Perhaps when considering whether to proceed >> with a given document, we need test as to whether it’s actively >> helpful/needed and ensure that we know what audience would be looking at it, >> rather than simply ensuring that it is “not harmful” and mostly within the >> WG’s chartered focus. > > My friend @colin_dixon pointed this out to me yesterday, and I've been > giving it quite a bit of thought since then (I have a nascent blog on > the topic of how open source and standards orgs might > productively/efficiently work together; follow up to > http://www.sdncentral.com/education/david-meyer-reflections-opendaylight-open-source-project-brocade/2014/03). > > What I can say is that after seeing the kind of progress that several > open source communities make (they do epitomize the best of the IETF's > running code/rough consensus ethic), one does have to wonder if > traditional standards making is either obsolete or in dire need of a > make over. What is needed, IMO, is a reimagining of how the standards > process interacts with the open source movement specifically focused > on how they can compliment one another. [Alia] It would be very useful to have a functional model for how the two can compliment each other. We also tend to talk about open-source as a single monolith - when it can have very different models for accepting in changes, how and who runs the community, who is really participating (open source doesn't mean non-corporate) etc. Some of what the IETF does is the architecture and requirements thinking about how the solution should fit in - while some of the open-source is about getting a solution implemented ASAP. IMHO, a spiral is useful with an easy way of interaction. With I2RS, as a WG chair, I suggested having experimental drafts describing solutions that were being implemented - but haven't seen any. A question is what is needed to encourage the interactions. [Alia] Diversity of implementation is important as is stability of a standard and it being understood how to change/upgrade for different versions. These don't come automatically via open-source. Regards, Alia