Forming a new area comes at a cost for the IETF, while there are also
potential benefits. I believe it is very important for the community
to consider and understand the costs versus the benefits for the
creation of a new area.
David,
The main problem with your note is that the IETF community has shown a
consistent lack of desire to pay serious attention to cost/benefit discussions.
You list issues with doing X and the response you get is "I like the idea of
doing X" or "I don't like the idea of doing X". No meaningful consideration
of the tradeoffs. An individual here, or there, might try to respond with
some thoughtfulness, but we don't seem to have the attention span needed to
pursue it.
The common thread to all of your points is that the community has limited
resources. Given that packet-switching is predicated on careful attention to
the sharing of scarce resources, it really is quite impressive how little
respect -- nevermind consideration -- is given towards it in making IETF
management and operations decisions.
If we applied much more strict quality, relevance and timeliness measures to
the existing IETF load, we would probably get rid of 1/3 to 1/2 of our current
activities. And possibly more.
At that point, we would not need to ask whether to add a new area, because the
existing structure would be sufficient for giving the additional attention
that real-time issues very much warrant.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
+1.408.246.8253
dcrocker a t ...
WE'VE MOVED to: www.bbiw.net
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