At 6:26 PM +0800 2/1/04, James Seng wrote:
So lets go back to IETF tradition. We need someone to write an i-d
with all the concerns and requirements, and then make our discussion
around that.
No, let's not.
Making an I-D would resolve the IP issues, particularly copyright
consideration.
I am not a lawyer, and neither are you. Having said that, I cannot
imagine how the above is true. IP issues usually fall into four
categories: patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. A
message on a mailing list saying that a particular idea is good is
sufficient as prior art for patents, at least in the US. You cannot
copyright ideas anywhere in the world that is a signatory to the
Berne Convention. It is too early for us to trademark anything, and
there are no trade secrets yet.
This is *not* an IETF project. It is an independent group, at least
for now. To date, the IETF method of creating requirements
documents has often failed badly. (For those who were not involved
with IDNS, James knows this very well from personal experience!)
Yes, IDN requirements was withdraw and was not published eventually.
But the process of capturing the requirements helps to align a lot
of discussion, of those within scope and those not.
And, as I said earlier, it is *way* too early for us to scope this.
If you want to start being narrow, you are obviously free to; I think
that is unwise for something as important as next-generation mail.
It is a useful process so long the author(s) dont get too attached
to it and wants to make it into an RFC later.
...which happens almost all the time.
That's great, and it's *not* an Internet Draft. I would really
prefer to see things like this than Internet Drafts, at least for
many months.
Okay, lets keep it this way then if others has no objections.
Um, I wasn't suggesting that your wiki was the only way. I expect
that many folks will create their own discussion areas, write their
own evolving lists of requirements, and so on. From the discussion so
far, it is clear that all of those will not overlap. This is a Good
Thing for the beginning phases.
At 1:11 PM +0200 2/1/04, Jari Arkko wrote:
I'm not much of a believer in requirements drafts at the IETF. We
often seem to be lost in the details of long wish lists and miss
the point.
That is my experience as well.
However, structured and well-thought out docouments are going to
be needed if we hope to succeed in this process.
The question is when to even start the document. "Two days after the
discussion has started" may not be an appropriate time.
--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium