Re: [apps-discuss] Experimental (was - Re: Review of draft-ietf-appsawg-file-scheme)

[Dave Crocker <[e-mail]>]

On 4/13/2016 7:55 PM, Matthew Kerwin wrote:
>     This is why focusing on bits over the wire is better than talking
>     about software implementation details.  If the 'different ways' mean
>     different bits over the wire, then they are using different formats
>     or different protocols.  And they won't interoperate.
>
>     If they generate/parse the same bits and same semantics over the
>     wire, this we don't care how the built the software to do it,
>     because they /do/ interoperate.
>
>
> The 'different ways' are actually different bits over the wire. Mostly
> those are the bits that weren't part of the original spec, but were
> widely deemed useful/necessary. I've tried to sidestep too much
> controversy by continuing not to specify them, but I did write down some
> of the ways some folk have decided to represent them.


OK.  My advice:

      If there is a common core of bits over the wire that they all do 
do, but then some /additional/ bits over the wire that are different, 
then write the spec for the common parts and note (but do not document) 
that there are various independent extensions.

      Treat any effort to document the variations as completely separate 
from the common core.


d/

-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net