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Re: Fwd: Re: IP: Microsoft breaks Mime specification

2002-01-22 17:50:02


"Marshall T. Rose" wrote:

Stef  wrote:
At the minimum, such violations of IETF Standards should be formally
noted in a letter from the IAB to the offending vendor, whoever that
might be, when such information becomes available to the IESG or the
IAB.

...

<snip>
the missing word in the paragraph above is "litigation", and i see no reason
why the voluntary i-* organization should willingly undertake an activity
that invites a lot of it, particularly when the market will sort it all out
(as it eventually does).

Perhaps we all agree that standardization without some sort of conformance
verification is ineffective.  We need a two-prong process: standards and
conformance.  The IETF takes a "hands off" approach to the conformance
issue and MTR points out why -- fear/cost of litigation.

However, suppose that the "lack of conformance note" mentioned by Stef would
not be sent to the "offending vendor" but would be provided publicly, at a
website, by an entity that has no legal status (IETF) and refers to a consensus
decision published in a RFC by a workgroup (also with no legal status) using
the open process of list consensus.  Then, at the very least, the market forces
might receive an incentive to sort it out.

So, what we seem to need is an RFC series dedicated to pointing out 
non-conformance
issues in implementations of IETF standards.  As an added benefit, we would not
need to talk about it -- just point to the RFC ;-)

Cheers,

Ed Gerck





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