Subject: We should have a Wheel/2 Research Group

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2021 18:52:21 -0500

"This time, we are going to consider round"

(yes, this is IRTF, but...)

One of the most frequent comments on new work proposals is 'no need to
re-invent the wheel'.

Well maybe we should do that more often. We have 40 years of path
dependence in IETF working groups. Rethinking a protocol from scratch can
have unexpected returns that are completely orthogonal to the original idea.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2021 20:57:45 -0500

On 3/6/21 6:52 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

> dependence in IETF working groups. Rethinking a protocol from scratch 
> can have unexpected returns that are completely orthogonal to the 
> original idea.

As an exercise, yes.   But probably not with the expectation that the 
new wheel will replace the old one.

Second-system effect is alive and well.

Keith

---

From: Masataka Ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2021 22:38:23 +0900

> (yes, this is IRTF, but...)

Not. It was IPng WG of IETF.

						Masataka Ohta

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2021 16:42:42 -0600

> > One of the most frequent comments on new work proposals is 'no need to

In the ASN.1 thread my point was that we should know well what came
before before we replace it.

Sometimes the old wheel has nothing worth saving other than the idea of
it, and when the pain of using that old wheel gets bad enough, we must
re-invent it.  Doing it ahead of time is risky and has opportunity costs
such that the new wheel needs to be that much better than the old to be
worth pursuing early -- it's an economic analysis problem.

> As an exercise, yes.   But probably not with the expectation that the new
> wheel will replace the old one.
> 

Insert standard "and now you have two problems" joke.

Also: https://xkcd.com/927/

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2021 23:38:51 -0500

---

From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2021 23:42:37 -0500

> before before we replace it.

Yes, I was making a completely serious proposal.

Surveying the defects in the existing state of affairs is an important part
of the process.

> re-invent it.

If re-inventing stuff was always a bad idea, we would still be using the
telephone network.

> Doing it ahead of time is risky and has opportunity costs

Or another possibility is that new approach is fused with the legacy.