The example I'm thinking about involved predecessors to OpenGL.
As this example doesn't even involve communication over a network, I would
agree that it is out of scope. ...
[OpenGL example]
It's not that other examples such as X couldn't have used more network
knowledge to
avoid problems (e.g. the mouse stuff), but that the network stuff is
the tail of that and many other dogs. Because of my employement
history, I may know a little more about how to do graphics in general
or over IP networks than many IETF participants, but I know that I'm
abjectly completely utterly incompetent for doing exactly what the
IETF started to do in that case.
Great scope example. The issue for OpenGL, however, demonstrates a gap
in as much as the developers would probably have liked something like
dccp so that they could use a library to get Nagle, backoff, etc. While
we're a wire protocol sort of a group, we all should realize the
importance of generality and good library support ;-)
If "out of scope" were removed as an acceptable reason to not do things,
then you would never squelch bad efforts.
An effort isn't bad because it's out of scope. An effort is bad because
it's bad, and we invest our faith in the IESG that they will use good
judgment to catch bad efforts.
If anyone on the IESG does not feel empowered to say "no" they should
not be on the IESG. WG chairs need to vet their own group's work first,
of course. And we could certainly do a better job on that.
Eliot