First, as someone who chartered the working group, who has implemented Lisp
(the programming language) at least four times, and who views Dr. McCarthy as a
hero I disagree that name is problematic or disrespectful. And I almost take
offense in the claim that this is a generational thing.
Frankly, I agree with Joel, Terry and others. There are plenty of name
collisions, LISP is not the first or the last one, and in general, people learn
to deal with them. More importantly, changing the name now would be even more
confusing, and unfair to the folks who have been working on this. Half of IETF
working group names are cute (and the other half I probably haven't figured out
yet...)
And don't get me wrong. I don't like the name too much, and would have
preferred another one. And I can't claim there will be no mistakes. At the time
that we created the working group, one of the IESG members mentioned the work
to her knitting group and they asked why the IETF works on the programming
language. That is how widely know the programming language term is. But already
at that time the effort had been around for several years and was widely known
with its name. I considered it already too late back then to change the name.
Let me propose two concrete actions, however. First, the plenary is coming up.
We should spend a silent moment to pay respect to the recently fallen heroes of
computer science.
Secondly, the LISP base specification is coming up for IETF last call as soon
as we agree on fixes per my AD review. Please review it and make your comments
on the content -- it is important that we get it right, including accurately
describing its benefits and limitations.
Jari
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