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Re: Running Code

2009-03-04 12:28:48
Brian,

Having running code only as a guideline has not served the IETF well lately, 
since it is largely ignored.

I am still cringing during the IETF SIMPLE meetings when we use Jabber IM that 
has the code free and available.

Would the SIMPLE WG have had the mandatory requirement of running code, SIMPLE 
would be much further ahead.

Henry



On 3/3/09 4:43 PM, "Marc Petit-Huguenin" <petithug(_at_)acm(_dot_)org> wrote:

Brian E Carpenter wrote:
Marc, and Henry,

I think adding any new mandatory section to all I-Ds is a bad idea.
It will quickly become bureaucratic. We've had proposals for mandatory
Management Considerations, IPv6 Considerations, and no doubt others
that I've forgotten, and they all have the same problem.

I agree that its sounds bad when presented like this.

The main motivation is to provide an incentive for early
implementations of a protocol, because I am convinced that this is a
very important factor on the quality of a protocol.  I had to
implement at least three times TURN from scratch during it's
development and this is an exhausting task.  This explain why a lot
of developers simply wait for the protocol to be stable (read: been
published as an RFC), and so deprive the protocol design of an
important feedback.  Giving to early implementers a guaranty that
their contributions will not be forgotten is a way to counterbalance
the time and effort spent in working on this contributions.


However, I think it's a very good idea to offer *guidelines* for what
should be in technical specifications in this area. In fact, my old
commentary on RFC2026 talked about related issues concerning
interoperability criteria for promotion to Draft Standard.
See the comments on "4.1.2 Draft Standard" in
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-carpenter-rfc2026-practice-00.txt
Obviously, the first stage in interoperability is interoperability
with yourself ;-).
(As far as I am concerned, you are welcome to use any of that
material under RFC5378 conditions.)

I encourage your draft to become purely a set of guidelines.
That would be useful and non-bureaucratic.

    Brian

On 2009-03-04 10:17, Marc Petit-Huguenin wrote:
I would like to bring to your attention this proposal to put back
running code at the center of Internet protocol design by adding a
new Considerations Section in future Internet-Drafts and RFCs:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-petithuguenin-running-code-considerations-00.txt

Thanks.




--
Marc Petit-Huguenin
Home: marc(_at_)petit-huguenin(_dot_)org
Work: petithug(_at_)acm(_dot_)org

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