Subject: Re: PPTP draft

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 15:19:11 -0700 (MST)

] From: Steve Coya <[email-masked]>

]  ...
] An Internet-Draft is either a work item of an IETF WG, or an individual
] submission. "Work item" means the document is a product of, or under the
] auspices of, an IETF Working Group.
] 
] The only significant impact of being a WG work item is that the document
] appears on the Working Group's Web page.

That may be the only significant effect as far as the IESG is concerned,
but there are potentially large effects (read Big-$$$) from obtaining the
IETF's imprimatur.  People don't jump through the RFC Editor's hoops only
for the egogratification of getting into the RFC index.

 .................

> From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>

> ...
> > >Is that an accurate label?  PPTP is not a "work item" of the working group
> > >is it?  
>
> I suppose that that depends upon how you define "work item".  The draft is
> the work of WG members, and it was submitted for review by the WG.
>
> > >Isn't PPTP Microsoft's originally and still essentially proprietary
> > >protocol, competing with the PPP tunneling protocol, L2TP, which is in
> > >fact a "work item" of the working group?
>
> PPTP is not "Microsoft's" protocol; it was the product of an industry
> group including Ascend and USR, among others.  The group included
> Microsoft.  L2TP is in large part derived from PPTP and L2F (a proprietary
> cisco protocol).  
> ...

That is at best specious.  The origins of L2TP do not imply L2F or PPTP
are IETF standards.  All of us have lives and business interests outside
the IETF, but our participation in the IETF does not make all documents
we write IETF work items.  A few participants cannot decide among
themselves what protocols the IETF PPP working group will produce or
review.  Such decisions require working group concensus.  The current
concensus is that the L2TP is the IETF PPP tunneling protocol, not
Microsoft's PPTP.

As for PPTP not being Microsoft's protocol--please do not insult our
intelligence.  We know that not all partners in industry groups have equal
votes, and we know why some vendors might care to talk to Microsoft about
PPTP.  In any case, what any industry group does is irrelevant here, even
if old timers had not seen countless consortia come and go.

Because of Glen Zorn's statement, it's clear that what I thought was merely
nitpicking prompted by my silly paranoia is what is actually happening.
The text at the start of the PPTP document is intended to give the
impression that Microsoft's PPTP protocol is endorsed by the IETF in
parallel with L2TP.  I don't think any chicanery was involved, but only
that the PPTP participants misled themselves, and hoped to communicate
their misunderstanding to the readers of their document.

I formally ask that the PPP Working Group Chairman direct the RFC Editor
to not publish another version of the PPTP document until and unless the
initial section is changed to make clear that the PPTP protocol and
document are not IETF efforts.  I think moving the last paragraph to the
start would be sufficient, but others might be more paranoid, particularly
when they read the second paragraph of the draft.  I trust that in any
case, the next announcement will not have the false claim that the document
is a "work item" of the IETF PPP Working Group.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: Kelly McGrew <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 15:42:15 -0800

Personally I think--given the market pentration of the two protocols--it would make
more sense to 'adopt' PPTP as an I-D, even if it remains outside the 'standards
track'.  Shucks, it would probably make sense to publish it as a full-blown RFC
(Informational) than leave it as an I-D!

BTW, I don't find Glen Zorn's message in my PPPEXT folder.  Did I miss it?

---

From: Kelly McGrew <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 15:42:15 -0800

---

From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:00:45 -0800 (PST)

> for the egogratification of getting into the RFC index.

If (as you claim) 'we are the vanity publisher for the world', what
imprimatur is there?  Your concern seems to be that people can't or won't
read the simple words in the document; if that is the case, what can be
done, except to abolish the Informational category altogether?
Fortunately I do not share your obvious disdain for the intelligence and
logical capabilities of the IETF community.

Speaking of specious arguments, perhaps you would like to point out where
in the draft it claims to be "the" PPP tunneling protocol?

> intelligence.  

Perhaps you would like to refrain from insulting the integrity of the
folks from USR, Ascend, etc.?

> We know that not all partners in industry groups have equal

Can you speak English?  Do you understand the word "Informational"?

---

From: Glen Zorn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 16:00:45 -0800 (PST)

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 06:33:04 +0100

> for the egogratification of getting into the RFC index.

One have to differ between the publication of I-Ds and the 
publication of RFCs. The status of RFCs are defined by the IESG at 
the time of publication (not when the I-D is published) and it is 
explicitely written in the header of the document, so one does not 
have to go through the rfc-index.txt file to know the status of an 
RFC.

Let's therefore keep the discussion regarding I-Ds.

> document are not IETF efforts.

Any kind of document can be published under the name of the wg (and 
not personal submissions). It is up to the wg chair to instruct the 
I-D publisher (the IETF Secretariat and not the RFC editor) on how 
this descision is done.

In this case, I understand your request being that the I-D publisher 
should not accept any new documents published in the wg if not 
submitted by the wg chair?

That is a normal descision/request by the chair of any working group. 
For example, Tim Howes and myself did handle the ASID working group 
that way (regarding LDAP stuff). All non-wg-chair submissions to the 
I-D archive for draft-ietf-asid-... naming was bounced to us.

Regarding the content of a personal submission as I-D, you have to 
take that up with the editor.

More comments can be submitted by you when the paper is last called 
in the IETF before the descision of the IESG.

    Patrik

------------------------------------------------------------------
Area Director, Applications Area               Email: [email-masked]
IETF                                             URL: http://paf.se
                                          PGP Key ID: 0xBD236602

   In theory there is no difference between theory and practice,
   but in practice, there is.

---

From: Patrik Fältström <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 06:33:04 +0100

Patrik

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 06:55:20 -0500

Vernon,

As Karl Fox (PPP WG Chair) has indicated, PPTP is not an official WG
document. It hasn't been for a very long time (more than a year).  As
far as I know, no one is implying otherwise, and I'd be extremely
surprised if anyone in the PPP WG thought differently. This just
hasn't been an issue inside or outside of the WG (until now, anyway).

At one point, the document was being considered by the WG, but L2TP is
the direction that the WG went. Yes, the PPTP document should have
been renamed from draft-ietf-pppext-pptp to draft-zorn-pptp (or
something similar) at that time. But let's not read more into that
than really exists.

> document are not IETF efforts.

In this and other messages you seem to be confusing the role of
Internet-Drafts and RFCs.  The RFC editor doesn't get involved until
the IESG approves the PPTP documentation for publication. That has not
happened yet.

Assuming you really mean ID editor, I'm not sure what wording change
will change the bottom line. Like all IDs, it has the standard
disclaimers at the front about not being a standard, not necessarily
being a WG product, etc.

> I trust that in any case, the next announcement will not have the
> false claim that the document is a "work item" of the IETF PPP
> Working Group.

With a bit of luck, there won't be another announcement. The document
has been submitted to the IESG for publication as an informational
(not Standards Track!!) document, and the last few iterations of the
document have been in response to specific change requests from the
IESG.

Thomas

---

From: Thomas Narten <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 06:55:20 -0500

Vernon,

Thomas