Re: [hrpc] I-D Action: draft-irtf-hrpc-political-05.txt

[Melinda Shore <[e-mail]>]

On 9/21/19 5:09 AM, Niels ten Oever wrote:
> "Network topology is a complicated political and economic question with
> obvious technical overtones"

I don't think that answers Andrew's question.  The economic argument
being advanced in 613 is:

    2.  "Loops" are not good per se, they appear good because the act of
    making loops increases the connectivity and thereby reduces the
    effect of multiple failures.  Adding more circuits costs ARPA money,
    both capital cost for IMP interfaces and recurring cost for the
    circuits.

so there's a cost/benefit question there that's inherently economic.

Anyway, how the IETF usually responds to discussions like this is to
narrow the scope of the document.  From my perspective the value in
the document as it currently stands is primarily in the literature
review, and there's much political in the IETF process (corporate
jockeying, involvement of national governments) that isn't covered
but which would make it incredibly difficult to get through any sort
of consensus process if it were.  I'd also argue that the literature
review avoids, for the most part, problems around perceptions that
opinions are being presented as facts.

So, it seems to me that it might be useful to strip out section 5,
rewrite the research question and conclusion, and to publish this as
a literature review.

Melinda

-- 
Melinda Shore
[e-mail]

Software longa, hardware brevis