- From: Chris Newman <Chris.Newman@innosoft.com>
- Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 13:04:28 -0800 (PST)
- To: Eliot Lear <elear@cisco.com>
- Cc: discuss@apps.ietf.org
On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Eliot Lear wrote: > There are two reasons to do what you suggest, only one of which will > fly. > > [1] To provide guidance on not having to repeat the same mistakes made > by others. This is a good thing. I agree this is a good thing, but I also suspect that by itself it lacks sufficient benefit to motivate people to do the hard work. Anyone could have documented the mistakes of the past at any time. The closest anyone came to doing so that I'm aware of was my internet draft: draft-newman-protocol-design-01.txt But I found myself lacking sufficient motivation to continue that hard work. It cost a lot of time and had no visible benefit. > [2] To provide mechanisms that keep us from existing using > protocols inappropriately. Given the way you've worded this I'd have to agree. I don't think the IETF can or should forbid people from abusing existing protocols. That's not something a concensus organization should do. But we can develop a simple alternative to abusing existing protocols which addresses most of motivations for such abuse. I consider that the vital motivation for this effort. > I think [1] can be accomplished with a BCP, stating those BCPs (make a > stronger statement than Informational). While I wouldn't oppose it being a BCP, I really don't think that's necessary. If we document past mistakes anywhere, we can always point to it and say "you're repeating this mistake." > Further, it's not clear that developing an APPLCORE protocol is > reasonable to attempt, since it will force you into too many LCD > situations with lots of options. This is something that we in the IETF > have struggled with in the past. I believe it's possible to make reasonable decisions to avoid too many LCD options. But this is an interesting point which I will keep in mind. > "We have seen ISO and they are us." Funny, I see APPLCORE as an attempt to counter-act one ISOism that's creeping into the IETF. ISO tends to require the use of lots of overcomplex and often unnecessary protocol and encoding layers. I see APPLCORE as creating a simpler alternative to some really large and complex protocol layers (with lots of unnecessary complexity) people are insisting on using. - Chris
Received on Friday, 29 January 1999 16:06:54 UTC