Subject: RE: draft-zigmond-tv-url-02

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 19:43:56 -0600 (MDT)

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

> ...
> I claim that _the fact_ that people pay no attention to the words is
> irrelevant.  The reality is that neither you, I nor the IESG can prevent
> the Slimy Marketroids (TM) from misleading their would-be prey -- only the
> prey can do that.  I refuse responsibility for other people's intellectual
> laziness, and I don't think that we should change the way we do things to
> accomodate it, either.  Internet-Drafts are also claimed to be "Internet
> Draft Standards" in literature I've seen, etc.  On second thought, I guess
> that there _is_ a way to stop the abuse of the RFC: abolish I-Ds, BCPs and
> all forms of RFC other than Standard.  That's not a direction I'd like to
> go, though...  

As I tried to say by referring to SLIP, the problem is not merely Slimy
Marketroids (TM).  Consider that all PPP compression schemes are described
by Informational RFC's.  You cannot make a competitive PPP implementation
without relying on de facto products of the IETF PPP working group that
are mere Informational RFC's.   ... Well, unless you implement only
Microsoft's compression scheme, that is also documented in an Informational
RFC, and that differs from the others most in not having gone through the
PPP WG.

It is hypocritical or at least egregiously inconsistent for the IETF to say
"ignore those Informational RFC's, but you better treat these as if they
were STD's."

Even if the problems were all due to Slimy Marketroids (TM), it would be
unprofessional to ignore their efforts.  Engineering is about dealing with
the real world.  Every competent designer/programmer/architect worries at
least as much about markets, politics, and other non-technical nonsense
as algorithms and data structures.  You can't build the super-cheap bridge
or building that the politicians demand but won't stay up, and just wash
your hands of the consequences.

> ...
> > > The obvious answer to this problem is to educate the public, rather than
> > > to suppress information on how things are done.
> > 
> > You mean like many big companies "educate the public"?  
>
> Maybe.  Perhaps the people who (obviously) _don't_ read the RFCs _do_ read
> "Network World"...

One of my hot buttons are those who get all of their techical information
from trade-rag inter-ad filler (including the authors of said filler).
But since they are the vast majority, I can't pretend they don't exist or
that they won't do what I know they will do.  It is stupid to rush the
exits of a theater when someone yells "Fire!"  Still, it's best not to
testing the stupidity of the general population by yelling "Fire!"
Also, if you're designing theaters, you must assume people will be stupid
if someone yells "Fire!"

So back to my question, which I asked because I don't know the answer and
think it might be useful...would anything bad happen if this RFC were not
published?

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]