ietf
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: How many standards or protocols...

2002-04-16 08:04:58

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <harald(_at_)alvestrand(_dot_)no>
To: "todd glassey" <todd(_dot_)glassey(_at_)worldnet(_dot_)att(_dot_)net>
Cc: <ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Monday, April 15, 2002 10:34 PM
Subject: Re: How many standards or protocols...




--On 15. april 2002 19:55 -0700 todd glassey
<todd(_dot_)glassey(_at_)worldnet(_dot_)att(_dot_)net> wrote:


Harald - what is the IETF's policy on this question.

How many of any one protocol will the IETF allow to be push through to
standard. And the IESG? Is it that there is only one standard for each
type of protocol or what?
This is an official resuest,

Since this is an official request asking for what the IETF will allow, I
think it is best to ask the IETF community. Thus the CC to 
ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org(_dot_)

The obvious (but meaningless) answer is "as many as needed".

then who makes that decision? You or the WG Chairs? The AD's???


Speaking for myself, I think it would be foolish of the IETF to create a
hard rule about this question - the circumstances may differ a lot.
Consider a few "multiple protocol" scenarios the IETF has faced recently.

I agree personally.


- In the IPNG discussions, we decided to pursue IPv6 only.

but if someone wanted to, would you have allowed them to persue a IPv4
variant?

- In the SNMP vs CMOT discussions, we decided to pursue two approaches.
  One died, the other remains.

Yes - Funny how the commercial industry is about that!.

- In the OSPF vs IS-IS discussions, we decided to pursue two approaches.
  Both survive, with little apparent harm to the community.

And they both offer cricital boundry routhing capabilities - and most Router
manufacturers support both protocols as far as I can tell.

- In the SNMPv2 discussions, we decided to pursue one, then to pursue
  multiple and "let the market decide", and then to pursue one again.
- In the case of CR-LDP vs RSVP-TE, we seem to be pursuing two.
  One seems to be winning, but the market has not decided yet.
- In the PGP vs S/MIME discussions, we decided to pursue two, arguing
  that they have different fields of applicability. Both survive so
  far, but neither has become ubiquitous.

When we pursue multiple approaches, there is one very hard question -
which
is when we take the decision to drop the pursuit of one approach.

But why is the question? If there are people actively working on the effort
and they want to continue, why is the management making any decisions as to
which protocols to push?

Sooner or later the answer is usually obvious. But the cost of pursuit is
substantial;

it would often be advantageous to concentrate on one as soon
as one is clearly superior to the others.

The cost of persuits is not borne by the IETF though so what's the point?
Why should the WG constrain any effort over another? This is a curiosity of
mine, that being why a WG should have squat to say at the management level
about the content of its protocols, only whether they are completed and
elevated to the next level or not. This is the core flaw in the IETF's
process. The WG Chairs need an arms length from each of the protocol efforts
and to act as mentors for all the projects that have committed participants.
They are not the ones to decide what the WG will and will not focus on, its
membership is.

As to the actual content and form of the protocols themselves,  the content
and form is up to the contributors and those actively involved in the
vetting process. So I would like to pose the question "why then should any
WG Management have anything to say about which protocols are done in their
groups?".

Several have said to me that they need this ability to drive focus into the
group. The problem is that there is no formal definition as to what that
focus is. Also it needs to be stated that WG participants are not labor
sources for the WG Chair to allocate, they are participants and are all
equal before the IESG - or should be at least.


I'd like to hear the IETF community's input on the topic.

                    Harald

Me too!.


PS: The mail being responded to was addressed to the chair of the IETF in
his IETF role, and is thus a "contribution" under the terms of the NOTE
WELL statement you've all seen.

Thanks Harald for the immediate response.

Todd Glassey