Subject: Re: Two modest proposals

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 01:08:37 -0700 (MST)

> From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>

> ...
> > How many of the drafts will ever have two or more independent
> > implementations?  My guess is that the notion of writing code makes
> > sense for fewer than 30% of the drafts, and of those, fewer than
> > 10% will ever be implemented by anyone, including their authors.
>
> This doesn't sound so bad.  In most cases people should get
> their propoals reviewed before they actually start to implement
> them, because any proposal is likely to change a fair amount
> before it gains consensus.

On the contrary, consensus should involve choosing among at least
prototyped ideas, not typical standards committee overhead-projector
blarney, white board designs, and cloud diagrams.

> I'd far rather we implement only the best 1/3 (if even that many) of
> our proposals, than to prematurely implement all of them.

Why should the IETF be the reviewer for every crackpot wannabe protocol
designer in the world?  Doesn't the U.S.Patent Office have the franchise
on that service?

Or to put it more politely, if you agree that 90% of all drafts for which
"implementation" makes sense are never implemented even by their authors,
why don't you think that's a Very Bad Thing?  What do you mean by
"prematurely implement"?  Supposedly, the difference between the old IETF
and the old ISO was that the ISO chose designs before implementation. 
Do you really think that anyone who submits a design to an international
standards committee before implementing it at least as a prototype it is
likely to be thinking critically enough to have produced a design that any
sane implementor would bother with?

Anyone with an idea can propose it to a working group without writing an
Official Internet Draft, and without writing any code.  The only reason
to write an Internet Draft is the hope that it will be published as an
RFC, an official IETF standard (small 's').  How can anyone sane hope for
an idea to become an official standard without at least building a
prototype implementation?

Just who is this "we" that you say is implementing things, if not the
authors of the drafts?

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 04:30:18 -0500

> designer in the world?  

I never said it should be, and I certainly wouldn't agree with that idea.
Just because someone submits an I-D doesn't mean that anyone has to review
it.  As it is, the I-D gets announced, and sits in a ftp directory for six 
months, and people choose to review it or not as they see fit.  
Why do you have a problem with that?  Do you feel like you have to read
every I-D that is posted?  Do you imagine that anyone else does, either?

> The only reason to write an Internet Draft is the hope that it will 
> be published as an RFC, an official IETF standard (small 's').  

That's demonstrably not the case.

> How can anyone sane hope for an idea to become an official standard 
> without at least building a prototype implementation?

Read 2026.  Proposed Standard doesn't typically require implementation.
If you've got a problem with that, take it up with poisson.

Keith

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 04:30:18 -0500

Keith

---

From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 00:16:29 +1100

Date:        Wed, 25 Nov 1998 01:08:37 -0700 (MST)
    From:        Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
    Message-ID:  <[email-masked]>

  | Anyone with an idea can propose it to a working group without writing an
  | Official Internet Draft,

Not in most of the working groups I have been involved with they can't.

Sure the idea can be proposed, we don't stop people talking (too much)
but it won't generally be considered more than for a minute or two, the
response is always "where is the I-D that describes this idea?"

Writing the I-D helps the proposer (author) clarify their thoughts,
weeds out the total noise (stuff from people not willing to take an
hour or two to set down their thoughts), and helps ensure that everyone
has a common understanding of exactly what it is that is bring suggested,
and why.

I've written a number of I-D's, some have gone on to become RFCs.   I think
only once have I actually implemented anything before the -00 version of the
I-D (and that time was because constructing the relevant examples for the
draft needed an implementation, of a kind, to be feasible).  Sometimes, when
the draft has been looked at, the WG has decided that the idea isn't worth
pursuing, it just gets dropped, with no implementation, by anyone, ever.
Even when I disagree, I'm not about to waste my time implementing something
which the rest of the community tell me they don't think is the right thing
to do.  But they're not going to be able to do that until they can understand
the proposal, and that requires that there is something concrete enough to be
understood.

I most empahtically do not want to even suggest to people that they should be
implementing before an initial I-D appears.   That's how we get into the
"I have implemented this, people are using it, the WG cannot change anything
or what would be described would not be what is being used, bless this
draft as it is please" type situations.   There we have no opportunity to
weed out some of the worse aspects of what can otherwise be quite reasonable
proposals.  Things like "change this part, it will scale better", or "if you
do this, it will be much more secure" need to be pointed out before there is
too much invested in the initial proposal.

Certainly it is a bit annoying when lots of I-Ds all appear in a rush, and
it is very tempting to assume that something is broken.  Just at the minute,
I am not sure anything is.   I am (without any specific knowledge) pretty
confident that the I-D people will get all the drafts that have been submitted
out by about the end of this week, which still leaves a clear week before the
IETF for people to fetch and read the ones of most concern to them.  No-one
should be contemplating reading all of them, that would be absurd.   Just read
the ones that are immediately relevant.   If no-one reads some of them, then
they will eventually just die from lack of interest.   I happen to have 110
new draft announcements in my mailbox (from the Monday & Tuesday announcement
cycles) that I hadn't scanned yet, of those 44 were -00 drafts, the other 66
are updates on something that has been seen before (two are up to the -12 rev).
Any of the 44 that are new that get review by someone are likely to benefit
from that, either leading to the dropping of the idea, improvement of either
fundamental aspects, or just details, or at the very least, better explanation
of the proposall.  It is quite rare for no-one to have any suggestions at all
about a new proposal...    The other 66 are clearly already part way through
the process of improvement.

To me, this suggests that things as we have them, aren't too bad in this area
right now, and that there isn't much of a problem to be fixed.  Moving the
deadline earlier will just make the problem (a little) worse - as apart from
all the "just in time" drafts that will still be there, there will also be
all of the drafts that were already being published in that earlier week (or
two) which will make the deluge seem even worse.    Perhaps some alternative
method of announcement of the drafts than IETF-Announce might be possible
so people can avoid being told about the drafts that are unlikely to be of
any interest might be one improvement, but I doubt that digesting announcements
is the right direction (if digesting will help you, a better mail reader
and mail filtering system will probably help you even more).  The only real
saving from digesting would be avoiding the repititive boilerplate (where to
fetch from, etc), which, once you are used to it, is really no burden at all
(that is, you simply switch off reading once you get to "Internet-Drafts are
available by").

I also tend to make a CD of all RFCs, I-D's (and usually mailing list traffic
for lists of relevance to me) for the IETF meetings (when I attend), but I
don't think we should be even contemplating asking the secretariat to attempt
to produce a CD in that last week (after all the I-D's are published, before
the meeting itself).   They have quite enough to do.   If someone else wants to
do that, and bring copies to distribute (at cost, or even making a profit) to
attendees, that's just fine.   Tell people you're going to do it, and just
do it...

kre

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From: Robert Elz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 00:16:29 +1100

kre