Re: proposed charter for TLS working group

> By 'STLP' do you mean "Microsoft's proposal" or "the eventual
> standard that the TLS working group produces"?
> 
> "STLP" has become overloaded- some people take it mean Microsoft's
> "strawman", others are using it as the name of the standard
> that this group is discussing.

Since the STLP strawman was clearly labeled as a "discussion draft"
and "incomplete" and yet the media still immediately started calling
it the Microsoft proposal, I don't think any name, including "TLS",
would be immune from political influence.

I'm agnostic on the choice - everyone here calls it "STLP or TLSP or
whatever" anyway.

> While I applaud your willingness to meet and to accomplish
> things, I'm not sure that calling a meeting like this doesn't
> voliate the spirit of the IETF.  Only a few of the people who
> have an interest in the working-group would be able to attend.
> I think it would be more in keeping with the spirit of the IETF to 
> do as much as possible via the mailing list, where all can participate.
> 
> Having said that, if there's a meeting in the bay area I won't miss it.

As someone who won't be able to attend, I believe a face to face
meeting would be valuable to speed things along.  Other venues (hallways
at IETF and USENIX) don't allow many of the interested parties to attend,
yet that's where much of the work gets done.  As long as the results
of the meeting are reported out and those with objections have opportunity
of reclama, I don't think a meeting violates the spirit of the IETF.

Remember that the intelligence of a committee is inversely proportional
to the square of the number of participants.  A properly-composed
small group may be able to move things along smartly, in both senses
of the word.

Received on Wednesday, 8 May 1996 08:58:38 UTC