Re: [dispatch] Proposed charter for extended date format

[Bron Gondwana <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Apr 15, 2021, at 11:25, John C Klensin wrote:
> Bron,
> 
> I have heard that there is an alternate universe in which
> standards developers actually work with each other. 

What a novel idea.

> That is
> often with the goal of producing better work than either could
> do separately or at least to avoid reinforcing the nasty comment
> (known in both worlds) to the effect that the nice thing about
> standards is that there are so many to choose from.  

No shit.

> For many years, the IETF was excluded from that universe because we were
> considered immature 

... and this thread suggests that maybe we still are.

> But, since we don't live in that universe (or at least I hope we
> don't), why not work out a collaboration with ECMA TC39 [1] and,
> ideally, a three-way one that includes ISO 154, and sort this
> out together, vastly reducing both the chance of one body
> standardizing something different from the rest of that world
> and, even more important, of messing it up?

You may have noticed that this work was brought to the IETF by the people at ECMA TC39.  They also brought it to CalConnect who have a collaboration with ISO154.  Everyone in CalConnect agreed that it would be great it the IETF published the work as an extension to or replacement of RFC3339, so that it was generally available to more than just javascript as it would be if it was just TC39, and available to the public without paying, which it wouldn't be if it was just ISO publishing it.

Fast forward to actually bringing it here.  The first feedback was "don't replace 3339, because many places just need a point in time and we don't want to make it more complex to parse when used there".  Fine.

Then we were told to bring it to DISPATCH, so I helped the TC39 people do that.  I also attended the TC39 meeting where they were about to declare this work "done" and I asked them to hold for a few months, thinking that the IETF might actually be able to do this one fairly quickly.

I'm leaning towards the conclusion that the IETF is still constitutionally incapable of cooperating with other standards bodies given that experience that TC39 have had here.  Otherwise I've had a complete failure at persuasion, which is quite possible. 

Either way, unless the IETF takes a crap or gets off the pot on this topic pretty soon, TC39 is going to have to go ahead and standardise this work without our input, because they can't wait forever.

Bron.

--
  Bron Gondwana, CEO, Fastmail Pty Ltd
  [e-mail]