At 11:36 AM 1/17/95, Paul_Lambert-P15452(_at_)email(_dot_)mot(_dot_)com wrote:
I would like to modify this thread of discussion slightly. Are we an
effective
standards committee?
My opinion is no.
Certainly the history of this, particular, working group provides a
strong basis for wondering with considerable force. And the IETF does have
a repertoire of previous working groups also showing what one might
politely call questionable productivity.
But the aggregate history of the IETF is quite another story.
There is much room to improve our working groups efficiency. I believe that
the mechanism instituted by Steve Kent
(justdoit(_at_)sub-rosa(_dot_)bbn(_dot_)com and
letswait(_at_)sub-rosa(_dot_)bbn(_dot_)com) provides a very valuable means to
improve our
standards development process. Rather than having a multitude of opinions
In point of fact, you are almost certainly wrong.
Voting is a very particular mechanism. It requires a support
infrastructure which also is quite particular. The IETF has taken as an
axiom that it shall have very loose participation rules. (Dave Clark,
1992.) Loose to the level of really being pretty much equivalent to none.
Hence, instituting anything that looks like real voting is, in fact, an
attempt to change the very core of the IETF operational premise.
One should not be too quick to assume that that massive a change
will be helpful, given the distinctive effectiveness of the IETF, in
contrast with standards groups run in more orthodox manner.
d/
--------------------
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg Consulting +1 408 246 8253
675 Spruce Dr. fax: +1 408 249 6205
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
dcrocker(_at_)mordor(_dot_)stanford(_dot_)edu