Subject: RE: What's an experiment?

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 08:07:26 -0800

> From: Eliot Lear [mailto:[email-masked]] 

> 
> Hallam-Baker, Phillip wrote:
> > That overlooks the fact that often the protocol is written up after 
> > the experiment, the results of which are described elsewhere.
> >
> > The main ongoing experiments are of the form: 'I believe that the 
> > protocol approach described in this document to address real 
> > deployment needs better than the WG consensus.
> 
> I agree this happens.  I don't think these are experiments 
> and I don't think they should be labeled as such.

Fine if you want to support the creation of an alternative label that
provides a better description.

If the idea is to attempt to further centralize control then it would be
unwise.

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From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 17:44:29 +0100

Phil,

Experimental seems inappropriate if really what is going on is that
there is no consensus as to how to do something.  If the RFC documents
existing practice and won't break anything (and in particular won't
break anything needlessly), then I would say another attempt via
independent submission should be tried.  People seem to forget that many
of our standards were NOT in fact built on consensus, but JUST running
code.  Ain't nothing wrong with that, you know.  Recognizing reality is
a good thing.

Eliot