william(at)elan.net wrote:
a news.com article covering the very discussions going on here (you all
are aware that the press is reading these archives and reporting on
what they are reading, right?)...anyways, from a news.com article
entitled "Standards group scuttles Microsoft e-mail proposal":
Media is reading too much into technical and other discussions going on
this group. This kind of media attention in my view is not helpfull to
the the IETF process. It also allows different sides instead of using
technical arguments inline with IETF process to pressure ietf into making
possibly bad decisions due to presumed interest from outside based for
example on wild speculation that they represent large groups (when these
groups are in fact unwilling to comment directly) and by using interviews,
press-conferences and other vendor organized public events to bolster
their own image.
It would be great if media stop interfering with our process until the WG
actually produces standard track RFC documents. At that time, if documents
were produced according with IETF standard process and represent concensus
of WG participants on the technical solution that does not violate existing
standards, then it becomes an issue of deployment of new standard/protocol
and media exposure becomes very helpfull in widespread adaption of the
new technology.
The Tao of the IETF (RFC 3160) points this out as well (section 8.2):
¨Considering all this, it's not surprising that some IETFers would
prefer to have the press stay as far away from meetings as possible.
Having a bit of press publicity for protocols that are almost near
completion and will become significant in the industry in the next year
can be a good thing. However, it is the rare reporter who can resist
over-hyping a nascent protocol as the next savior for the Internet. Such
stories do much more harm than good, both for the readers of the article
and for the IETF.¨
Yakov