What fascinates me about p2p is that it was clearly the
next Big Thing, but there seems to be no feedback loop
operating whatsoever.
At the risk of birthing a much unwanted tangent, I think it would have been
somewhat egocentric for the IETF to do anything that lent legitimacy to the
p2p movement. At least until some of the bigger issues surrounding it start
to find resolutions.
But we can't prevent people from deploying solutions that we
didn't develop, and we shouldn't even try to IMHO.
I wasn't suggesting control, but much more that the cross
pollination of clue isn't happening and whether we should be
alarmed about that. In particular, what does that say about
ietf? Some have suggested that it means that we've done our
job, but that strikes me as a wee bit too self-satisifed
for my taste.
While it may be self-satisfied I still very much agree with Brian (though
having had nothing to do with the design of IP or the Internet I can't
possibly be self-satisfied, so let's just say I'm very satisfied with all of
you ;)). I'd even go so far as to say it's none of our business (please
don't bikeshed this). In a properly architected alphabet the letters have
no fear of the words because the words never lack for a letter.
While there are people who don't like corporate involvement in the IETF
(again no intention of spawning a tangent), I think it's that involvement
that insures a long-lasting future, whether or not we are omnipresent on
the bleeding edge. Truth is this is a dream come true for entrenched
corporations a. because they are somewhat assured they won't come out with
an 8-track while someone else comes out with a CD-ROM and b. once you have
your huge customer base you don't really need exclusivity to a technology,
you just need to make sure you're not excluded from it (i.e. we're a Cisco
shop and so long as Cisco can do what the others can we'll probably stay a
Cisco shop). Anyway I guess what I'm saying is so long as 95% of the market
share continues to participate in the IETF, our opinions will continue to
matter. I would however be alarmed if Cisco, IBM, Sun, and Microsoft
unsubscribed from this list in favor of the BitTorrent Engineering Task
Force.
Nick
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