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Re: IETF Last Call under RFC 3683 concerning JFC (Jefsey) Morfin
2006-01-22 13:36:25
Hello;
I received some private comments, so I will respond in greater depth.
Please be careful what you ask for.
In doing so, I reread IETF list traffic on this from last September /
October last year, and also the complaint.
So, here goes. First, I am aware of how disrupting posters can be. I
remember one individual who posted incessantly on IPv8 on a WG list,
another who hacked one of my organization's DNS servers just because
I dared to question the validity of alternative roots in a post. And,
I came out in favor of the 3683'ing of Dean Anderson. So, I am not an
automatic no vote.
However, I feel in a case such as this, things are a little different
from technical standards setting. You are entitled to your own
opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts. While technical
standards are largely based on facts, in a case such as this opinions
come into play. If I say that the protocol "foo" should be rejected
because it has a serious technical problem, you are entitled to ask
what this problem is. My opinion, by itself, is not enough. On the
other hand, if I say that I don't feel that poster "Ydobon" is
disruptive, that is, in a sense, not arguable. It is like saying that
I dislike the cookies served at the break at an IETF meeting. You may
like them, others may like them, but giving me lists of these people
or of reasons why I should like them is not going to change my mind.
Note the difference here, and the reason why I feel that a simple
statement of agreement or disagreement is sufficient :
If there is a fatal technical problem with a proposal, taking a vote
of who likes that proposal is irrelevant.
If we want to decide if people like the snacks at the break,
providing lists of reasons why they should like them
is irrelevant.
Of course, in very close or tough cases, or particularly egregious
ones, other things may come into play. For example, if the cookies
are poisoned, people shouldn't eat them, even if everyone raves about
them.
I feel that banishment is a severe punishment, severe enough that I
think the conduct should be extremely bad
to warrant it. That is my feeling; others may differ, but there it
is. Under the category of extremely bad behavior, RFC 3683 says
Although not exhaustive,
examples of abusive or otherwise inappropriate postings to IETF
mailing lists include:
o unsolicited bulk e-mail;
o discussion of subjects unrelated to IETF policy, meetings,
activities, or technical concerns;
o unprofessional commentary, regardless of the general subject;
and,
o announcements of conferences, events, or activities that are not
sponsored or endorsed by the Internet Society or IETF.
To these, I would add, threats, insults, and the like.
Note that these are (again, in my opinion) not of equal weight. If
Mr. Ydobon
sends to the list once a message beginning
RE:TRANSFER OF USD 168,559,000.00 MILLION TO YOUR ACCOUNT.
(actually received by me yesterday), I would say he's gone. If he
threatens death to those who disagree,
ditto. But, for "discussion of subjects unrelated to IETF policy,
meetings, activities, or technical concerns", I have very
occasionally posted jokes to this list, as have others, and I would
hope not to be banned for one occasion.
Now, to the case at hand. I read this list, and I do not feel that
Mr. Morfin has been disrupting it, nor have I seen any egregious
attacks, insults, etc. That's just my opinion, but there it is, and
that is the basis of my previous statements.
However, maybe he has been doing bad stuff on other lists; that,
after all, is part of the complaint. So, not being paid to do this, I
looked at the complaints and singled out two of the six :
[5]
Personal attack, IETF-languages list:
http://eikenes.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-June/
003369.html
Personal attack and threats, LTRU list:
http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/msg03788.html
I regard personal attacks as really egregious, and threats as worse;
even one might certainly be enough to warrant banning.
So, what do I see ?
In http://eikenes.alvestrand.no/pipermail/ietf-languages/2005-June/
003369.html
I see a first paragraph that I cannot parse at all, and a lot of
other verbiage that I am not qualified to
judge on technical grounds, but nothing I see as an attack.
Ok, in the second, http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ltru/current/
msg03788.html
I am going to quote all of JFC's postings, with
tme> being a comment from me.
-----
> Cannot it be the result of a DISCUSS?
> I may be wrong, but from the debate it seems we have a lack of
> clarity concerning the "private use" possibilities between mentors of
> this WGý (I agree with the "qsi" comment given by Harald).ý
IMO, the pros and cons of using private use code or metadata elements
are reasonably understood generally but must be considered
specifically in the context of a given application context. All we
are doing is providing tags and a spec for certain ways to compare
tags; we are not telling people tags must be used in some derivate
protocol or application. Section 4.5 does give general guidance about
the limitations of private-use tags, including the caveats that
Harald mentioned:
<quote>
Private use subtags have no meaning outside the private agreement
between the parties that intend to use or exchange language tags that
employ them. The same subtags MAY be used with a different meaning
under a separate private agreement. They SHOULD NOT be used where
alternatives exist and SHOULD NOT be used in content or protocols
intended for general use.
</quote>
That is the kind of thing that's appropriate to put in *that*
document. If the MPAA or MPEG groups need to discuss specific
implications of using "qsi" in their protocols and advice
implementers of the potential concerns of exposing that to other
systems, that's *their* problem, not ours.
Dear Peter,
This response is the response to the question below.
- who is the "ours" you quote? This is IETF not Unicode: it is not
meant to deliberately ignore MPAA, MPEG, etc. like requests, nore the
generic ISO 11179 compliant needs, all them represented by AFRAC
whose job is to interface them all. Our (as IETF) is to support
"*their*" problem (which incidently is mine).
- the failure of the document is that if it partly permits to support
private agreements such as MPAA or MPEG or AFRAC, but it makes that
capacity useless in providing no way to document which private
agreement is being used. This leads to the conflicts described by
Harald and denies the need of the Common Reference Centers like AFRAC
to support them all. This is an organised DoS. And you just
documented it. Thank you.
tme>It is not clear to me who he is saying is doing a DOS, but I do
not regard that as an actionable insult.
tme>I don't see any others.
> Dont you think it is better to accept a simple half additional line
> and permit to address all these tricky cases one shot (in just
> permitting to indicate the private space of exchange where the added
> information applies) rather than in re-chartering, wasting months,
> etc. to universally address a limited number of local cases. Will
> this will never end? Or is there a major reason I do not understand
> demanding it.
That's what we're all wondering: will this ever end?
Frankly? I do not know. Some with serious annoyance capacity for your
employer talk of three to five years and of the justice obligation to
support "0-". This is beyond me anyway. Your decision: they wanted to
kill the project, but they are slow. We shown them we could manage in
"0-" with ":" and "." and undetermined length.
There's not another half line of text needed in RFC3066bis to discuss
this. What's really needed is already there.
This is a sales pitch for the unique solution you want to impose (to
favor the Charter quoted Unicode CLDR proposition?)
Impeaching private solutions and competition? No well accepted. After
all, this is your problem to pay lawyers.
tme> Hard to read, but I cannot conclude he is threatening legal action.
We've all had opportunity to review it, comment on it and suggest
changes to it, and the time for that has passed.
Not this with me, please. People are reading!
This process must and will end; the rest of us are pushing for closure
The IETF mechanic calls for a few months more. Should some at the
IESG do not realise how much your proposition is detrimental to their
own corporation (as an example of the way it is detrimental to
everyone) there will be appeals - I may or not be involved (I start
being bored and my work is building your competition). Then there
will be political and legal actions.
tme> Again, hard to read, but I cannot conclude HE is threatening
legal action, he is predicting it, a
tme> very different matter.
You really misjudged my opposition. I was here only to help with QA
for consumer protection. I proposed you to cooperate several times.
Now I can only wish you personal good luck if the RFC is eventually
approved by the IAB.
But you seem to want to drag it out longer for the sake of a half
line that will supposedly address in one shot all kinds of tricky
problems that supposed are not yet addressed -- except AFAICT they
are addressed.
Repeating this does not make you any good, nor to your employer:
people are reading.
When all this is finished ten years from now, I will have you for
lunch. I will explain you what you did wrong for
tme> Is this the threat ? I don't think he is threatening
cannibalism. It sounds like a friendly
tme> invitation to me.
your employer.
jfc
-----
So, in my sample picked for "Personal attack and threats", I see no
threats, and really no attacks either.
It is hard to read, and may not be worth reading, but is not
actionable IMHO.
So, after all of this waste of my time and yours, I am now STRONGLY
against approval of this PR-action.
Regards
Marshall
P.S. IETF-announce removed from this thread.
On Jan 22, 2006, at 7:48 AM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
Because I do not feel that the punishment is merited.
On Jan 22, 2006, at 7:25 AM, Eliot Lear wrote:
Marshall,
I do not support approval of this PR-action.
Because.....??
I posted my thoughts earlier, my understanding is that in the last
call process it is appropriate to restate one's
opinion.
If you conclude that I think that there has been too much verbiage
on this matter, you are correct. I am trying to add to it as little
as possible.
Regards
Marshall
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