Hi Eliot,
Similarly, SOCKS went quite far before the IETF ever got a look at it.
Why? Because we are no longer viewed as a place where development can
seriously take place. Risk averse. You know that thing about running
code? Taken too far we fail what I think part of our mission is, which
is to be a place to collaborate, because everyone will have shown up
with their respective running code, only to fight over whose running
code (if anybody's) will become the standard. See, for instance, the
XMPP/IMPP wars.
I agree with you on this. I think we see already other groups working on IP
protocols, avoiding the IETF. One could look at the example of RADIUS, for
example. RADIUS was originally developed outside of the IETF, brought into the
IETF, extended by a half-dozen SDOs and now the IETF is considering trying to
clean up the current mess. The IETF has used individual submissions to make
things a bit better, with some success.
Part of the problem was that the we took so long to develop the follow-up to
RADIUS - Diameter - that we completely missed the window, so the world kept
extending RADIUS.
John