Re: RFC Series Editor Resignation

[Hector Santos <[e-mail]>]

On 7/3/2019 11:56 AM, Randy Bush wrote:> [ just hitting reply to be in 
thread, not pointing at you, sob ]
>
> tom jennings (still a friend), the creator of fidonet[0],

Amazingly, Randy, I still have many die-hards using Fidonet frontends, 
mail and file gateways, virtualized over TCP. My Platinum Xpress (PX) 
and Wildcat! BBS are among the "Last of the Mohicans" with Fidonet 
capabilities.  http://www.santronics.com/products/pxpress


> was repeatedly
> pressured to make rules.  he eventually gave in and made two rules.  of
> course, they immediately became expanded by the embellishers, resulting
> in https://www.fidonet.org/policy4.txt, from which i quote
>
>    The FidoNet judicial philosophy can be summed up in two rules:
>
>       1) Thou shalt not excessively annoy others.
>
>       2) Thou shalt not be too easily annoyed.


Yes, as you remember, there was a weapon -- membership into the 
Fidonet nodelist.  Excommunications was possible.  There is also the 
technical compliance requirement. FTS-1 was a basic requirement for 
all the software during Zone Mail Hour.  I recall how this became an 
early contention and conflict with the FTSC and the then-modern 
internet developers who wanted to use the advanced internet-ready 
WAZOO protocol and not waste time with a dated protocol that did not 
work well under the packet switching network.  A sysop could be 
excommunicated for not using compliant software.

> mike asked solid and critical questions.  when not answered, he became a
> bit more strident.  as one to whisper twice and then nuke from orbit, i
> find it hard to fault him.  when the response is an attack on his tone,
> with no response to his question(s), and coming from two members of the
> iesg, i am alarmed and deeply saddened by an abuse (due to imbalance) of
> power in what is easily construed as an attempt to silence.

Unfortunately, this remains to be and don't see is changing.  The 
basic idea among the many IETF cogs is to allow "noise" (thread 
activity levels) decide what is relevant or when a "cog" will join the 
discussion.  There is also the "messenger" problem.  Depending on who 
delivers it, it can activate or kill mail I/O.   This remains to be a 
behavior with a number of well-respected, long time IETF "do-all" cogs 
who will ignore smaller participant postings until someone deemed more 
important replies, and to a large extent, almost always to "shut" it 
down.   There is also now the big elephant in the room, the "who you 
work for" guy - big vs small.  If you are from the bigger firm, 
increasingly with stronger, sponsorship ties to the IETF,  in my 
technical opinion, this has hurts what I long called "Cooperative 
Competition" where we design protocols common to all implementations 
at all scales and doesn't include technology that hurt or raise the 
barriers of entry for the smaller scales and implementations.  Today, 
cooperative competition is harder to achieve.  The IETF still helps 
keep the spirit, but in the end, the little guy is losing within the 
IETF.  I understand it is a battle. People will suggest the IETF 
monies spent needs to be allocated in a way that gets thing done. I 
read that a number of times stated when it comes to creating WG. 
Unfortunately, in my view, even if you are incline to follow a market 
leader, the quality of proposals are down and while the "Trickle Down" 
theories are nice, the realities are they don't quite work when the 
implementation cost are now much higher to even explore new ideas and 
methods used by the bigger firms.

> this is severely damaging the ietf and the internet.  please stop.  just
> stop.

In my opinion, the IETF does not benefit by the, for lack of a better 
term, "IETF Do-all" folks. They are certainly highly experienced, 
provide input, help complete, push, and to a growing extent  help 
"rammed down" lower quality documents as "proposed standards," but in 
my opinion, it comes with no major long term gain or benefits to the 
entire IETF community as a whole -- from hobbyist, small, mid to 
enterprises.  Newer participants quickly learn "who's who" and learn 
to pick their battles often leaving out concerns that may appear like 
you are rocking the boat.   Like now.

Today, many in the IETF are less tolerant are are quick to promote or 
seed the ideas of moderation and controls to shut down any form of 
contention or boat rocking.


> 0 - "FidoNet: technology, tools, and history," Communications of the ACM
>      Volume 36 Issue 8, August 1993.
>      https://archive.psg.com/930000.fidonet-acm.pdf

Never knew this document existed. :)

-- 
HLS