On 3/10/20 1:52 PM, Toerless Eckert wrote:
On Sun, Mar 08, 2020 at 10:04:12PM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
For instance, if a proposal is
motivated by a desire to use the standards process to gain an unfair
technical advantage over competitors, it almost always will do some harm to
Internet users - and that harm may be easier to demonstrate than the motive.
I think this argument works only in simple, "evil" cases.
In reality today, i observe quite the opposite:
I think one can understand the competitive grounding of a lot of technical
positions and in many cases, proponent can be quite open about it (*).
I do see this sometimes. But I have also seen cases in which one party
basically attempts a DoS attack against a proposal, doing their best to
thwart consensus by any means available, and doesn't offer any
constructive path forward.
I've also seen cases (both inside and outside of IETF) in which a demand for
positivity has been deliberately used to suppress input that those in
leadership positions didn't want to have aired.
Something like you pick the one word in an opposing view that can be misconstrued
to be marginally offensive or rude and then you shift the discussion to
one of pure language, not answering to the technical concern ?
I have seen precisely that tactic used to sabotage a proposal.
That is at least what i have seen happening, and only in one
case i remember did this result in some serious backslash, aka: we are
IMHO definitely living in a time of PC language as a weapon).
Indeed.
Indeed. Here was my personal (*) example how one can be open
about commercial positions:
In Multicast we have this complex protocol IGMPv3 (2000). 10 years
later a new company and propose a simplified version. Whereupon
i stood up in WG and said that this may be technically interesting,
but creates even more new work for companies that have implemented
the complex version, and makes only market entrance for new companies
easer, effectively shifting the cost away from the proponents to their
competitors.
I have seen very little open discussion about commercial positions
though over the years, i think more would be helpfull.
I agree that it can help to understand these incentives and barriers to
adoption of proposals, though I realize that practically speaking this
may not always be possible.
Keith
