At 10/19/00 10:19 AM -0400, Keith Moore wrote:
> The last thing I need is more political statements like that.
> Stick to engineering here, please.
the question is, what environment are we engineering for? one
which is controlled by Microsoft or one which is platform-agnostic?
when I was on IESG the number of working group participants,
even working group chairs, who would exchange working documents
in MS Word or Powerpoint and thereby exclude folks not using
Microsoft software, was truly appalling.
the way I see it, IETF is about making the world a better place.
engineering is the mechanism, but any activity that tries to
improve the world is inherently a political one.
Keith
Well, last I looked I didn't think that the IETF was "engineering" video
conferencing application products here. I would suspect that we are users
of developed products, and that we should pick the products, perhaps
several, that benefit the largest community that we wish to reach.
I know nothing about the suitability of the Netmeeting application (or even
who makes it, presumably MS given your comment)
If what you are trying to do is be most inclusive in your tools, then stick
to that goal. It may mean working/translating in several environments and
vendors.
What I do object to is backhanded Microsoft bashing.
Let me try the same tune with different lyrics:
"I don't like the size of Cisco in the networking market place. It's well
established that cisco sales-droids are the minion of the devil, and all
their engineers and representives sent to the IETF should be treated with
equal caution. And therefore we should toss any of their suggestions in
the bin, because they are clearly bent on world domination. And certainly
discourage adapting any protocols or products that they develop. I think
I'll look for an ISP that doesn't have any Cisco products in their network,
and shun all others."
(gee that was fun!) Useful not!
It's time to face facts. There are many, many, many of us that use
Microsoft officeware products. It is extremely useful/easy for us to
"talk" in our native language, but I agree wholeheartedly with the desire
to not to marginalize anyone. This is a social/user engineering problem.
Denying MS tools are out there is not useful. But that also works both
ways. I spend much more time than I feel appropriate, writing IETF format
documents because the tools I have don't help me (that includes Unix based
tools).
I don't think world progress is made by just bashing MS here. I think we
need to raise some of the officeware neophytes to a higher level of
awareness, and someone (not me) needs to build some better document tools.
Dave (nose back to the ID grindstone).
---------------------------------------------------------------
David Mitton ESN: 248-4570
Advisor, Nortel Networks 978-288-4570 Direct
ServiceWare, IP Mobility 978-288-3030 FAX
Billerica, MA 01821 dmitton(_at_)nortelnetworks(_dot_)com