On Sat, Oct 16, 2004 at 10:49:52AM +0000,
Mark <admin(_at_)asarian-host(_dot_)net> wrote
a message of 57 lines which said:
I have even heard folks commend him on the fact that he even bothers
to answer, where most "drafters" would not.
Since you claim to name people, please write my name here :-)
Now, not to be overly rude, but when exactly has Mark Lentczner been
given the authority to have a definitive say in things? Hence my
first question, when have we allowed the one who writes the
standard, also to be the one who 'sets' the standard?
He never had such an authority and never claimed so. Since the forced
disbanding of MARID, there is no longer a group / community / society
in charge of SPF / LMAP. Now, everybody is on its own, unless a new
group is formed (I would prefer an IETF Working Group, but the IETF
does not want us, Phillip Hallam-Baker would prefer an OASIS Working
Group, but, anyway, no such group exists today).
So, Mark Lentczner has no authority and does not say he has. He was
just the first to step in, in a week where many people said "We ought
to do something" without actually doing it.
Read the history again: Mark Lentczner was not ambushing waiting for
the closure of MARID. He published his draft much later. In the mean
time, anybody could have do it.
So, if you disagree with draft-lentczner-spf-00.txt, you have two
solutions: trying to influence Mark Lentczner, from individual to
individual, or forking, which means promoting a concurrent standard.
<helicopter color="black"> This is probably what Microsoft wanted
after MARID refused to fully endorse PRA: "better no standard than a
standard we do not control". The closure of MARID provided an
opportunity for Microsoft to use its marketing muscles while many
small competing projects scream "we are the real SPF specification and
libspfN is the only real SPF implementation". </helicopter>