RE: Initial draft of mux WG charter

Hi Mike,

> I've started trying to draft the mux WG charter.  You can see the
> draft at
> <http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP-NG/1999/02/mux-Charter-202.html>.

Thanks for posting your initial draft charter.

Staying within the scope created by this charter, my comments are:

The charter states:

"The goal of this working group is to standardize a protocol ..."

A working group doesn't "standardize" a protocol, they develop a protocol,
which then hopefully is adopted, and becomes a de-facto standard.  The IETF
carefully works to distinguish the act of creating a protocol from its
standardization status, so that's why this raised a red flag for me.
Replacing "standardize" with "develop" probably works.

"...a reliable bidirectional byte stream protocol (such as TCP)."

Is your intent to keep in-scope discussion of use of MEMUX over non-TCP
reliable transports?  Let me toss out a red-herring: would MEMUX over Zmodem
be in-scope?

Some items which were missing, but which often appear in charters:

* A discussion of what is in scope, and out of scope.

* A list of deliverables.  You'll definitely have a protocol document, and
presumably there will also be a goals document.  Does a model document, or
some kind of operational characteristics/performance document make sense
here?  Also, have editors been determined for these deliverables?

The "Goals and Milestones" section is pretty sparse and, given the level of
activity on this list so far, a bit ambitious.

Also, while I think both you and Jim Gettys are very qualified to be WG
chairs, I'm curious as to how you're sharing the chair duties.  If "the buck
stops here", on whose desk does this sign sit?  I don't think this needs to
go into the charter, but it would be helpful to have some public statement
on this topic, so WG members know how the chair's role is being shared.

- Jim

Received on Monday, 8 February 1999 14:05:55 UTC