Re: "why I quit writing internet standards"

On 14/04/2014 19:01, Simon Pietro Romano wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I read the post from Vidya and I have to say I totally agree with her. 
> As to running code, in particular, my impression is that if you are 
> used to implement prototypes of ongoing standards and you're neither a 
> big company nor a member of the IETF elite of gurus, the best you can 
> buck for is an informational "call flows" RFC. Standards Track stuff 
> is left to those who (seem to) do the high-level specification work. 
> This happens because people seem to rush for editing documents as soon 
> as a new WG is chartered, but then they progressively reduce efforts 
> when such a WG starts to lose momentum and is not latest fashion any 
> longer.
Or when they made to the famous authors list of the WG document, which 
is considered at THE major achievement.
I've seen that problem a few times and it's very annoying.
I would be in favor to re-evaluate who really contributed to the 
document full life cycle when the document leaves the WG.
Regards, B.

> Finally, coming to interoperability, it is hard to work on it if your 
> implementation is the only one available. In the long run, I do 
> acknowledge the fact that you get tired of doing all that hard work 
> and investing so many cycles in a highly underestimated engineering 
> activity.
> My two cents,
>
> Simon
>
>
> On 14/apr/2014, at 18:34, Michael Richardson wrote:
>
> > George, Wes <wesley(_dot_)george(_at_)twcable(_dot_)com 
> > <mailto:wesley(_dot_)george(_at_)twcable(_dot_)com>> wrote:
> > > - We don’t have nearly enough focus on running code as the thing 
> > > that helps to
> > > ensure that we’re using our limited cycles on getting the right 
> > > things out
> > > expediently, and either getting the design right the first time, or 
> > > failing
> > > quickly and iterating to improve
> > > The solution here may be that we need to be much more aggressive at 
> > > expecting
> > > any standards track documents to have running code much earlier in the
> > > process.
> > For instance, had DMARC proponents and/or Yahoo, spent some time 
> > making sure
> > that there was some running code for mailing list use, life would be 
> > better.
> > I'm not entirely clear how it was that we produced/funded (more) 
> > running code in the
> > 1990s.  Maybe this is a false idea; it could be that there was less 
> > code then
> > than there is now.   I will posit several factors:
> >  1) there was less working occuring, and perhaps over a longer time 
> > period
> >     (where time is subject to perception as well as reality), such that
> >     code became mature sooner in the specification process, and/or there
> >     were simply more volunteers willing to produce it.
> >
> >  2) many companies were much smaller, and it was easier to get line 
> > managers
> >     to see why they wanted to be directly involved, even lead, efforts.
> >
> >  3) it wasn't so much the dotcom boom which made money available via VCs,
> >     but rather that the (ultimately unstainable) revenue doubling, 
> > quarter
> >     over quarter which made resources available for prototypes.
> >
> >  4) there were some clear institutions (MIT, CMU, Berkeley, LLBL, UW) 
> > where
> >     some good reference implementations were developed by students, 
> > faculty,
> >     staff.  And don't forget WIDE and USAGI!!!
> >
> > When I founded Xelerance, it was with the idea that multiple large
> > organizations were shipping IPsec code on Linux, and would rather pay a
> > company a maintenance fee than attempt to manage the process internally.
> > We got some work funded, but we never got enough funding to get ahead of
> > the standardization process and write code will an ID was still young.
> > Overall, that effort failed.
> >
> > --
> > Michael Richardson <mcr+IETF(_at_)sandelman(_dot_)ca 
> > <mailto:mcr+IETF(_at_)sandelman(_dot_)ca>>, Sandelman Software Works
> > -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-
>   _\\|//_
>       ( O-O )
>  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o00~~(_)~~00o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Simon Pietro Romano
> Universita' di Napoli Federico II
>      Computer Engineering Department
>       Phone: +39 081 7683823 -- Fax: +39 081 7683816
>  e-mail: spromano(_at_)unina(_dot_)it <mailto:spromano(_at_)unina(_dot_)it>
>
> <<Molti mi dicono che lo scoraggiamento è l'alibi degli
>  idioti. Ci rifletto un istante; e mi scoraggio>>. Magritte.
>                      oooO
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