Re: [hybi] Extensibility mechanisms?

[Maciej Stachowiak <[e-mail]>]

On Jul 21, 2010, at 4:28 PM, Mike Belshe wrote:

> 
> 
> I disagree that the protocol's development has been in any way held up by
> this. I agree that we've talked about it a lot in the working group, but
> the spec itself hasn't been affected by this as far as I can tell.
> 
> To be specific, our earlier discussions about error handling, large frames, and binary frames were all cut short under the "too hard for amateur programmers".
> 
> Based on the +1s in this thread, I think many agree that this has occurred.  I don't yet know if we mostly agree that amateur programmers is not an overriding criteria, so how do we decide?  Can we get a group decision on that now?
> 
> Once we have a decision on that, we can finish looking at the other issues on the table.  If we agree that "amateur programmer support" is not a feature, then it cannot be held up as an argument for or against any proposed solution once we've decided upon it.  Or, if it is a priority, then we should weigh all proposed changes against it to ensure that the requirement is met.
> 
> Can we call a vote on this issue alone and settle it?  Chair-people, can you offer guidance?  Without a decision on the importance of this issue, I know we'll go circular again when deciding on other issues.

The IETF generally does not use voting as a means of decision-making. I don't have personal experience in how decision-making is done when there is not clear consensus, but these documents describe how it's supposed to work.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2026
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4677

Regards,
Maciej