I think there is much software publicly released by vendors for
standards track protocols. And there's a lot more protocol work being
done by vendors than teams on public research grants. I know
personally that Brian Weis (RFC 3547) and David McGrew (RFC 3711) did
outstanding implementations in recent years. It takes a lot of
patience to address legal and liability concerns. Many people won't do
it. Small companies typically cannot afford to do it.
Mark
On Aug 6, 2005, at 4:07 PM, Brian Rosen wrote:
I notice that we have stopped being interested in running code.
I think that is to our community's detriment.
If two groups are arguing with one another, and one has implemented
code and
the other has not, I think we would give great weight to the running
code.
I don't see that happening. This happened in a session during this
meeting
where I was present. Running code was not considered significant in
the
discussion; it was not even mentioned as a criterion in deciding the
issue.
Probably more importantly, I think we should be VERY suspicious of new,
complex specifications before we have running code. We are very
clearly NOT
doing this. We are willing to publish a proposed standard for an
entirely
new protocol that has very significant complexity, where there are
people
openly skeptical that it will work at all, with nothing but some
sketchy
simulations and a (admittedly well reviewed) draft. We are routinely
publishing complex protocols and significant changes/additions without
even
simulations.
Our rules permit us to do such things. We should rarely choose to. We
don't know what we are getting into until we write code. We don't
know how
hard it is to implement, we don't know what works and what doesn't.
Perhaps there are a large number of you out there that are able to
claim
reasonably complex things work based on reading a document and looking
at
simulations. I am not. My experience is that getting something to
actually
do what you want it to do is very illuminating.
I wonder if we should change our bias towards bestowing Experimental
status
on drafts that ask to be published as RFCs without running code.
Clearly, there are specifications where the complexity is low, and we
have
enough experience with the subject that we can be reasonably sure it
works
without running code. We should be able to bring such ideas out at
Proposed
Standard. Good judgment is always required to choose which side of a
line a
particular draft falls on. I assert we have pushed the line away from
running code quite too far.
We still do operate with rough consensus. We ought to return to having
running code.
Brian
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