Subject: Re: [newtrk] List of Old Standards to be retired

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:31:02 -0800 (PST)

*> From [email-masked]  Thu Dec 16 05:23:25 2004
  *> Mime-Version: 1.0
  *> Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 08:02:44 -0500
  *> To: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>, IETF Discussion <[email-masked]>
  *> From: Margaret Wasserman <[email-masked]>
  *> X-Spam-Score: 0.1 (/)
  *> X-Scan-Signature: ffa9dfbbe7cc58b3fa6b8ae3e57b0aa3
  *> Cc: "[email-masked]'" <[email-masked]>,
  *>    [email-masked]
  *> Subject: Re: [newtrk] List of Old Standards to be retired
  *> List-Id: IETF-Discussion <ietf.ietf.org>
  *> X-ISI-4-32-5-MailScanner: Found to be clean
  *> X-ISI-4-30-3-MailScanner: Found to be clean
  *> X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-4.9 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham 
  *> 	version=2.64
  *> 
  *> 
  *> >RFC0885       Telnet end of record option
  *> 
  *> This option was, at least at one time, used for telnet clients that 
  *> connected to IBM mainframes...  It was used to indicate the end of a 
  *> 3270 datastream.  I don't know if it is still used in that fashion, 
  *> but Bob Moskowitz might know.
  *> 

I don't see that usage matters in the least. The EOR option provides a
function that was useful at one time and may be useful again.  It is
not technically unsound.  I don't see any excuse to change the category
of this document.

Bob Braden  (speaking for himself)

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf

---

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:45:58 -0800 (PST)

*> Standards have been invented for creating markets.

That's strange, all these years I thought standards were for
interoperability.

Bob Braden

  *> Gruesse, Carsten
  *> 
  *> 
  *> _______________________________________________
  *> Ietf mailing list
  *> [email-masked]
  *> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
  *>

---

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 08:01:52 -0800

> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Eric Rosen

> Eliot> Even  if someone  *has* implemented  the telnet  TACACS  user 
> Eliot> option, would a user really want to use it?
> 
> Eric> I don't know.  Do  you?
> 
> Eliot> Yes, I do.  Many of us do.  And that's the point.
> 
> I'm sure  you think you know,  but I don't  know that you 
> know,  which means that a lot of  people have to waste a lot 
> of  time preventing you from doing damage. 
> 
> Are you also the one who "knows" that OSPF demand circuits 
> are never used? . newtrk 

Should the fact that someone uses something mean that it should be
considered a standard?

If so the MARID group was a mistake, SPF should simply have been accepted as
is without discussion.

Lets do a thought experiment, should EBCDIC be considered a 'standard'? It
is certainly used but there is no imaginable sense in which anyone would
ever suggest building on top of it.

The whole point of standards is that you are narrowing down the range of
design choices. That means discarding standards that are of antiquarian
interest only.

The number of Internet users is now approaching or may have reached a
billion. Please make an effort to recognize your responsibility to the 99%
of those users for which the debate on legacy technology is irrelevant but
have some very real and very urgent issues with the technology they are
faced with using.

What is meant by taking a spec off standard is that it will no longer be
maintained. This means no more updates, but it also means that future specs
will not be constrained by it either. 

This is important for two reasons, first there is simply too much junk that
is too badly organized that people demand backwards compatibility for. The
early ASRG discussions had folk prattling on about the need to continue to
support UUCP. The second reason is the opposite of the first, there are some
very important dependencise that should be maintained but are not because
they get lost in the sheer volume of irrelevant cruft.

As Larry King's first boss told him: This is a communications business. Like
it or not the Internet is now the Web and the influence any party can have
is dependent on their ability to communicate a coherent message. The IETF
has been unable to communicate a coherent message about its work. Take a
look at the IETF web site and compare it to the W3C and OASIS sites. Finding
out what the IETF has done through the web site takes a lot of effort. W3C
and OASIS tell you their list of achievements straight up on their front
door.

Each one of the crufty irrelevant specicfications is diluting the IETF
message. If you continue to tell people that backwards compatibility with
obsolete mainframe terminals based on specifications from the punch card age
is important while failing to tell people that stopping the current Internet
crime wave is important then it is very easy for people to dismiss you.