Nico,
...
Bikeshedding is what this is.
I'm under no illusions as to having a single dictionary of terminology
in such a large group. In fact, I've no patience for these games; I
recall vividly Stephen Kent trying to school me as to the meaning of
"network authentication", whereupon I had to point him to the very TITLE
of RFC1510 (fun times).
I recall spending a lot of effort trying to transform your BTNS text into
something useful. I'm generally pleased with the results (vs. what I
started with) in terms of the text. I'm sorry to see that the effort was
not so successful wrt engendering good writing habits.
It's true that terminology matters, don't get me wrong, but you're
demanding a level of conflict-free terminology that is infeasible, while
at the same time failing to convince anyone that there's a problem here.
Really, "protocol design pattern" is problematic?!
yes, it is. it's yet another example where Viktor has chosen to
needlessly create a new term, which engenders confusion.
When trying to convey new concepts to an audience it's a good idea to use
existing terminology whenever possible. This doc is a poster boy for failing
in that regard.
The question is not "can you find some past usage of this or that term
that you can use to nitpick?". The question is: is the I-D clear?
That's an easy question to answer: NO, it is not clear.
IMO: the I-D is quite clear. Serious arguments otherwise would be nice;
text nice still.
Read my comments to Viktor. They provide specific suggestions on how to
change the text. The problems are so widespread, and Vicktor has been so
unwilling to make changes, that, short of re-writing it for him, I don't
see how to fix this mess.
Another question, even more important, is whether OS (the proposed
protocol design pattern, not the term) is on the right path or whether
it is dangerous, or how to improve it. I've yet to see anargument that
Viktor's OS proposal is weak tea, dangerous, or could be improved, only
lots and lots of verbiage about verbiage.
In fact, Viktor's prose is needlessly verbose in many places. I provided
some examples of how to simplify it. This doc can be much better, and
not longer, if it were rewritten to be clear.
Steve