Re: [AGENTS] BOF at IETF

stef@nma.com Sun, 17 November 1996 01:25 UTC

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Date: Sat, 16 Nov 1996 17:24:28 -0800
To: John C Klensin <klensin@mail1.reston.mci.net>
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CC: Steve Coya <scoya@ietf.org>, Einar Stefferud <stef@nma.com>, Tony Rutkowski <tony@netmagic.com>, iesg@ietf.org, mhtml@segate.sunet.se, fred@cisco.com, directorate@apps.ietf.org
Subject: Re: [AGENTS] BOF at IETF
Reply-To: Einar Stefferud <stef@nma.com>
Message-ID: <RM

Hi John --

Your point is not cloudy, but we still have the problem of drawing a line
on "use of IETF facilities".  At a regular meeting, this is rather easy.

Now, what about sending a notice of an AGENTS meeting, with its OMG
sponsorship plainly stated, to the IETF-Announce mailing list, if such is
even possible without screening by the IETF Secretariat?  Is this in or out
of bounds?
Seems to me that in have seen lots of non-IETF meeting announcements there.

But, on the OMG/IETF relations front, I must agree that we need to be very
careful about leaking confusing messages.  The W3C relationships come
clearly to mind, and the S/MIME situation does also...  We even need to
worry about people riding to our rescue on the pretense/assumption that we
are unable to get things done by ourselves.

On a slightly different track I think it is time for non-IETF efforts that
do not want to be subject to IETF formal control, to go their own way and
be encouraged to use IETF WG rules and processes, as I have mentioned
elseswhere.
That really is the answer to how to coperate in development of standards
for use in the Internet.  The IETF is well known to not have a monopoly --
It is just that IETF has delivered better results over the years when it
comes to provision of protocols that work in Internet Environments.

Others have done better at developing other stuff, but not Internet Stuff.
Is there any harm in other people learning how to do good internet stuff?

And if there is no harm, what should IETF do if such a process begins to occur?
Hopefully not throw up road blocks and try to claim or enforce hegemony.

Cheers...\Stef

At 16:31 16/11/1996 -0500, John C Klensin wrote:
>On Sat, 16 Nov 1996 13:17:49 -0800 (PST) stef@nma.com wrote:
>> Sounds kind stiff to me, to not even allow iinformation about related
>> events to be made visible at the meeting, or in IETF-Announce, or any other
>> recoginzed IETF communication channel.
>> 
>> Perhaps you do not mean to imply such a draconian reading;-)...\Stef
>
>Stef,
>
>There is a slippery slope here and I'd encourage a more liberal 
>reading as soon as I understand how to characterize the "Agents" 
>effort in a way that makes it different.  We've had several attempts 
>or incidents in the past in which groups that have not gone through
>any of the IETF review processes have wanted to co-locate meetings 
>with IETF.   In the eyes of sloppy publicists or reporters, 
>"co-locate" often spills over into "co-sponsor", or 
>"presented and discussed at IETF", or even "IETF endorses".  While 
>I'm sure that isn't the intent here, that blurring into IETF 
>endorsement or implicit IETF standardization of something over 
>which IETF has no control (or much influence) has sometimes even 
>appeared to be intentional.  You will also recall that OMG is one of 
>the organizations that has, in the past, asked IETF to endorse or 
>standardize their technology, usually without releasing either 
>change control or freely-available (and low or zero cost) copies of 
>their specifications.
>
>Until we have a theory or model that distinguishes an OMG-based 
>agent effort from these more problematic situations, I think the 
>draconian reading is necessary and appropriate.  One such model 
>might be a liaision with OMG that would make all relevant OMG 
>specifications and publications available to the IETF community on 
>the same basis that RFCs are available.
>
> regards,
>     john