On 29 Nov 2012, at 18:51, SM <sm(_at_)resistor(_dot_)net> wrote:
Hi Ed,
At 06:54 29-11-2012, Edward Lewis wrote:
Earlier in the thread I saw that someone expressed dismay that BOFs seem to
be WG's that have already been meeting in secret. I agree with that. At
the last meeting in Atlanta, I filled in sessions with BOFs and found that
the ones I chose seemed as if they were already on the way to a
predetermined solution. Only one had a presentation trying to set up the
problem to be solved, others just had detailed talks on draft solutions. In
one there was a complaint that the mail list wasn't very active - not a WG,
a BOF! Not very engaging.
The complaint about a quiet mail list may have been a comment I made at the
mdnsext BoF. The reason for that is that the guidance we have for holding a
BoF (RFC 5434) recommends forming a public mail list a couple of months before
the IETF meeting where the BoF is planned and to have substantive list
discussion in advance of the BoF, which should help form a solid problem
statement and draft charter.
Extensions of the Bonjour Protocol Suite (mdnsext) BoF
The agenda [5] mentions "Goals of the BoF" with a link. I don't recall
whether any proposed solution was discussed.
Some views on potential solutions were made at the mic in the BoF. But the
draft that was presented was a requirements draft, not a solutions one. I'll
speak to Ralph soon about moving this forward.
Bringing in baked work because there are multiple independent and
non-interoperable solutions is what the IETF is all about. Bringing in a
baked specification just to get a stamp on it is not.
The former is a driver for mdnsext, i.e. a number of vendors producing
potentially non-interoperable mDNS proxying solutions. I don't see a problem
with the latter, especially if it documents something useful that is otherwise
opaque.
Certainly some WG lists have a lot of traffic, and on lists it's easy for a
small number of vocal people to dominate the discussion, which is less likely
to happen face to face (where people have to queue and take turns).
Tim