Re: [ietf-outcomes] [OPS-AREA] IETF Outcomes wiki

["David Harrington" <[e-mail]>]

Hi,

Because it would be good to "standardize" our measurements of success
and failure of IETF protocols.
RFC5218 was written, presumably, to help developers better understand
what makes a protocol successful.
The results wiki is, presumably, for a similar purpose.
It would be nice if the IETF reached consensus on some definitions for
success and failure before we start advertising our successes and
failures in a public wiki.
To represent consensus, maybe both the wiki and the definitions in
RFC5218 need to be modified.

I support the wiki, but would like the methodology to be documented so
different people can edit it in a consistent manner, so readers can
interpret it with some consistency. It has too much opportunity for
unintended consequences to do it wrong. 

One problem with a wiki is that it can represent the personal opinion
of the last person to edit it, rather than to represent the consensus
of the IETF. But it is posted on the official IETF web site, and can
easily be mistaken to represent an official statement of consensus.

dbh

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave CROCKER [mailto:[e-mail]] 
> Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 11:21 AM
> To: David Harrington
> Cc: 'ops-area (IETF)'; [e-mail]
> Subject: Re: [ietf-outcomes] [OPS-AREA] IETF Outcomes wiki
> 
> Dave,
> 
> On 2/9/2010 7:53 AM, David Harrington wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I think it would be good to set success and failure to 
> match rfc 5218,
> > and have the legends page provide brief descriptions of the
> > categories, and reference RFC 5218 for more details.
> 
> 
> The easy question is:  why?
> 
> The definition in RFC 5218 is:
> 
>       "we consider a successful protocol to be one that both 
> meets its original
>       goals and is widely deployed."
> 
> This means that a protocol is a failure if it is widely used, 
> but for different 
> purposes than it was intended.
> 
> "Deployed" is also a problem, since there is a long track 
> record of industry's 
> having deployed something but never actually using it very 
> much.  I submit all 
> of OSI as a prime example.
> 
>       These are the reasons the wiki was premised on the 
> simple measure of use.
> 
> However I note that the column that lists degree of success 
> only uses the word 
> 'adoption'. However Target Segment uses 'use'.
> 
> d/
> 
> ps.  I also note you've been busy updating net 
> management-related entries.  Thanks!
> 
> -- 
> 
>    Dave Crocker
>    Brandenburg InternetWorking
>    bbiw.net
>