Re: Grievances - Wide

Daniel W. Connolly writes:
 > In message <9512071918.AA08028@rafiki.spyglass.com>, Daniel DuBois writes:
 > >
 > >The next thing basically is a process issue.  Some of the informal hallway
 > >conversations I had confirmed my suspicions that the current progress of
 > >the group is insufficient.  As I see it there are 
 > 
 > Are you volunteering some resources?
 > 
 > Some venting in "post mortem" mode is healthy, but let's keep in mind
 > that this is a volunteer organization.
 > 
 > Some of your comments directly addressed works-in-progress, and I
 > appreciate those comments (I disagree with some of them -- in
 > particular, the notion that content negotiation is subordinate to the
 > main focus of the HTTP spec...)
 > 
 > But the general exhortations to the group aren't really all that
 > useful, are they?
 > 
 > Dan
 > 

I think they're somewhat useful, in that:
 (a) the big changes to the spec do not seem to mirror the conversation on the
	working group mailing list, or even to follow the process described
	by Roy.  (Are there working implementations of Unless and
	logic bags that I don't know about?  What about the new methods?)
 (b) issues that have been brought up repeatedly in the working group
	are not resolved by the spec.  As the perpetrator of some of those
	issues I am not going to harp on them more right now, except
	to say that I think issues that could be resolved rather
	easily are too often left unresolved.
 (c) by ignoring things like Netscape's cookies, the working group
	stands in danger of simply being bypassed by the market.  If 
	the working group continues not to respond to such issues
	(whether they've been submitted as I-D's or not) then it will simply
	become irrelevant over time. I think it would be unfortunate
	to abdicate control of this protocol to any single commercial entity
	by such obvious inaction.

--Shel Kaphan

Received on Thursday, 7 December 1995 13:03:57 UTC