Re: [apps-discuss] Updating the status of SPF

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 05:29:09PM -0400, Scott Kitterman wrote:

> The evidence I'm aware of points to number one as the most likely result of 
> doing this work.

Fully agree.

> I would prefer an initial charter that is oriented on this 
> path to minimize the amount of time that needs to be spent on bikeshed 
> discussions.

No.  This is exactly the process objection I have.  If SPF is supposed
to jump tracks, then everybody's live issues get to come out, or
nobody's do.  I made an analogy with EAI before, and one reason I did
was because their focus on mostly modest changes has been enabled
exactly by the short duration of the experiment.  

A so-called experiment that has run as long as SPF (it was published
five years ago) should not be moved to the standards track without the
opportunity for everyone who thinks there's a problem to have hits.
Those people can be ruled out by the WG as unrealistic given the
deployed base, but they ought not to be ruled out by administrative
fiat (which is what keeping the charter so narrow entails).  This
isn't to say I think that a standards-track SPF that is 4408bis, with
only niggling changes, is wrong.  I'm just opposed to making that a
rule for a WG that is also moving SPF to the standards track.  If we
make such a rule, we are in effect making the experimental track step
0 of the standards track (if you count from 1, else s/0/-1/).  In this
age where we are dying to get rid of standards levels, I think adding
experimental to the front is a bad idea.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]