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Re: [dtn-interest] DTNWG proposal is a terribly bad idea

2014-07-23 12:58:29
Lloyd,

Why do you continue to expend so much time and effort on something you
claim to be fundamentally broken?  Wouldn't you make more productive use of
that time working on a design for a Perpetual Motion Machine?

From more than a decade of observation, it strikes me that the substance of
your "contributions" would be extremely valuable if only you would develop
a more palatable communications style.  If you made fixing problems (or on
improving upon the existing state) the priority over receiving public
credit for "being right", your contributions would likely be better
received and advanced.  Being recognized as right is *far* less useful than
convincing others to do the right thing.

While you might be comfortable on the receiving end of your contributions,
clearly most aren't.  Always assume your audience is thinner skinned than
yourself.  If you were kind enough to return a lost wallet, but insisted on
including a detailed, brutally honest critique of the family photos inside
-  you shouldn't be surprised when you fail to receive a Thank You or even
an acknowledgement for your effort.

From my recollection of the dtn-interest mailing list, the failure of your
checksum draft(s) to advance was not because there was a lack of consensus
regarding the technical details - you received very positive feedback, but
because of your insistence on including unnecessary (unhelpful) editorial
content in each revision.  As this dragged on, the general concept of
reliability became toxic.  Not *entirely* your doing, but you could have
have bent a little in order to advance the draft (and the case for
reliability).

Your prolonged frustration led you to choose a intentionally
confrontational (insulting) presentation style for the "Bundle of
Problems"  paper of which you are so proud.  The paper was understandably
not well received in the DTNRG community.  Things degraded from there...

I'll note that while I often agree with the substance of your technical
positions, your chosen presentation style (often) makes me want to
disagree.  Alienation is not a winning strategy.

We met back in 2001 at a London meeting.  I was favorably impressed by you
- and remember other attendees sharing the opinion (including Adrian).  You
are certainly capable of effective contribution WHEN YOU WANT, but your
default preference tends toward scorched earth...  It's entertaining but
counter-productive.

Based on the historical impacts, I'd have to say that Vint's 2008
suggestion to you was indeed a good one. Whether or not the current
suggestion that you not participate in a DTNWG is appropriate depends
entirely on you...

You might be the "smartest kid in the class", but unless you expend some
effort on a charm offensive it won't matter in the least.

Regards,

Eric



On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 10:21 PM, <l(_dot_)wood(_at_)surrey(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk> 
wrote:

 Vint,


 not participating in the DTN effort was a suggestion you made when we

discussed the Bundle Protocol while walking around the golf course at

IETF Dublin in July 2008, after I raised concerns about the Bundle

Protocol work being rushed and not being technically sufficient.


 Since that conversation, we have done the first in-space tests of bundle
use

from the UK-DMC satellite, we wrote the "A Bundle of Problems" paper that

has belatedly been recognised as identifying problems with the Bundle

Protocol... Those and other contributions would simply not have

happened had I followed your suggestion then.


 In hindsight, do you think that was a good suggestion?


  Lloyd Wood
http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/dtn
  ------------------------------
*From:* Vint Cerf <vint(_at_)google(_dot_)com>
*Sent:* Saturday, 19 July 2014 10:29 PM
*To:* Wood L Dr (Electronic Eng)
*Cc:* dtn(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org; dtn-interest; IAB IAB; IETF-Discussion list; 
IESG
*Subject:* Re: [dtn-interest] DTNWG proposal is a terribly bad idea

 ok, you don't need to participate in the WG if it is formed, Lloyd.

 vint



On Fri, Jul 18, 2014 at 11:28 PM, 
<l(_dot_)wood(_at_)surrey(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk> wrote:

I'm not going to be attending the DTNWG BOF remotely, as it's
at 2am my local time - but I'd just like to point out, as I said in

http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/dtn/current/msg00026.html
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/dtn/current/msg00054.html

that I think that having an IETF workgroup push the technically
flawed Bundle Protocol through on standards track, after years
of poor development and unfixed problems across two IRTF research
groups, is a really terribly bad idea that does not benefit the IETF
community, and does not benefit work on delay-tolerant networking
or ad-hoc networking in general.

So, I am not in favour of the proposed DTNWG being formed.

Enjoy Toronto.

Lloyd Wood
http://sat-net.com/L.Wood/dtn
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