Re: When did we lose control?

Team-

I am going to risk seeming wishy-washy (or is it called flip-flopping) and 
try to agree with both sides here (actually three sides :)  To steal a line 
from Trinity: "Let me tell you what *I* believe."
1. I believe Classic SPF has great value.  People want to use it, and we 
should all do everything in our power to encourage them and enable them. 
That's our power base.  (I think this is what Wayne's draft expresses)
2. MARID was not a complete waste of time.  It didn't accomplish its 
primary goal, but there were a number of good ideas to come out of it.  If 
there are some minor things that might add value to SPF, let's give them 
some consideration.  For example, positional modifiers are a good idea and 
they don't seem to harm anything.  (I think this is where Mark L's draft 
was headed.)
3. There are a lot of other aspects to "forgery" than just the 2821.MAIL 
FROM.  Some of these would benefit from having SPF-like techniques applied 
to them as well.  HELO is one example, which happens to be totally 
compatible with Classic SPF (since it is our fallback position anyway). 
This is probably best expressed by the "Unified" idea and slide show 
(though I'm not sure if it ever became a draft).
Now, before you start laying into me, let me just say that I know the 
Unified idea doesn't have a lot of support right now, and probably will not 
win the popular vote.  But, I honestly think Unified is a credible future 
direction for SPF.  I'll put it this way: if Classic SPF does a great job 
of stopping the forgery of return addresses, why should we stop there?  I 
realize however that this is a "possible future" direction and should not 
be considered as a "current" task.


Let me say a few words about when "we" lost control.  My theory about 
management and leadership is this:  You can be a great leader, or you can 
be a great manager, but if you try to do both, you are doing justice to 
neither.
What's the difference?  A manager prioritizes, schedules, supervises, 
resolves conflicts, allocates resources, inspires, encourages, cajoles, and 
basically makes sure that everyone is pointed the same direction and not 
stepping on each other.  A leader is the one who decides *which* direction 
we all need to go, because he is able to take a very long view and see a 
much larger picture.  In other words, managing is all about tactics and 
leadership is about strategy.
I believe Meng is a great leader, who is constantly being pressed into 
service as a manager.  I believe Meng is the heart of this outfit, and I 
believe it's the rest of us who need to be its eyes and ears, brains and 
brawn, etc.  However, I think Meng is deliberately trying to take a step 
back, so perhaps it is time for some others to step forward.
There may be multiple Leaders, but there can only be one Direction.  Right 
now we are suffering from too many Leaders and not enough Managers (and 
damn few Workers for that matter.)
I don't know of a clever way out of the respective corners we have painted 
ourselves into.  Do we want a democratically elected leader who will set 
the direction for the next six months, and then trust him completely with 
our fate?  Do we want to articulate our various platforms and try to come 
up with a single mission statement?  Do we want to get a small number of 
key players in a room and hash it out until we come out with a new 
direction that some of us might see as a compromise?  Do we want to let 
anyone who thinks he can be a better leader try to lead and let the 
contributors decide for themselves whose banner to follow?
Given a choice, I would prefer to have a few key players hash it out among 
themselves.  The output of Leadership should be a well-articulated mission 
statement that any good manager can pick up and follow.  There can be 
multiple leaders, as long as they are leading us in the same direction -- 
otherwise we risk splitting our resources, which is a recipe for failure.

Speaking for myself only, I am not here to follow a person.  I am here to 
follow a great idea.  Or rather, a large collection of great ideas, *most* 
of which are compatible and harmonious.
I am not going to point at Mark, Wayne, or Meng and say "I support your 
version".  The truth is that those versions are 90% the same.  I am happy 
to follow any *one* direction, as long as 1. I agree with *most* of it, and 
2. the leaders are willing to re-evaluate things and make direction changes 
every 6 months or so.  If there are parts of the leadership platform that I 
don't agree with, I am content to just not work on those parts and spend my 
efforts on something else that benefits the whole.  To me that is a lot 
better than second-guessing someone's leadership because I agree with them 
90% but not 100%.
For that reason I would really like to see Mark, Wayne, and Meng have a 
"come to Jesus".  (Steel cage match.  Three men enter!  One plan leaves! :) 


In closing let me say that I Believe SPF is strong; strong enough to endure 
this relatively minor disagreement.  I would not like to see SPF split into 
factions, but even if it does, even that will not kill it.  Even if we fail 
to agree on what the next step should be, SPF will endure.  But, we have a 
great opportunity to take advantage of the MARID breakup and get people all 
facing the same direction in a way MARID never could.  If we can manage 
that, we will all be better for it.
--
Greg Connor <gconnor(_at_)nekodojo(_dot_)org>