Re: How many standards or protocols...

[Lloyd Wood <[e-mail]>]

On Mon, 6 May 2002, Jan Meijer wrote:

> Market researchers and the like were the ones that decided just
> waiting for lawsuits to come along and pay damages would be cheaper
> then getting all the vehicles back and replace the
> all-to-easily-exploding-gastank.

> This is just one example that shows that the ethics of marketing and
> management persons can be...different.  It is quite safe to say they
> are generally devoted to making money, not technically sound
> products.

as required by corporate responsibility to shareholders under law.


> I'm quite happy with the IETF process.  It has produced the Internet,
> which is one of the most complex constructs on this planet.

The Internet predates the IETF. The first IETF meeting of 21 people
was in 1986, and there were already close to a thousand RFCs by that
point, including all the important stuff. The IETF is first mentioned
in RFC985; IETF doesn't turn up as an abbreviation until RFC1038.

The IETF has spent fifteen years trying to tweak the Internet, with
varying degrees of success. (I shudder to think what an Internet
produced from scratch by the IETF would look like. They'd probably
still be working on a very-nicely-specified MIB.)

L.

the Internet is a product of the cold war, and few were happy with _that_.

<[e-mail]>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>