Re: [p2pi] WG Review: Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (alto)

Just catching up on some of the traffic in this list.

I think the openness of the ALTO effort is highlighted by the fact that
currently this is the busiest out of the 8 IETF lists I subscribe to...
In the IETF vigorous mailing activity is a better signal than any other
of the level of interest in a topic and thus the level of involvement in
the wider community.

Regarding the workshop, it was pretty open. It was widely advertised,
albeit at short notice. Seemingly the majority of submissions were
accepted (impressive given the short time available in the workshop).
Copies of all the documents and presentations are available and the
output was to convince several ADs of the need for new work at the IETF
(hence two BoFs and probably eventually 2 WGs).

As to including your point b). Lisa correctly pointed out that the main
reason the BoF in Dublin failed was a lack of focus in ALTO. What you
are proposing sounds like an interesting work item for a different WG or
more likely an IRTF RG given you admit you don't know of any proposals
out there currently. However adding it to ALTO would just scupper the
next BoF and thus kill the work completely.

I think Lars summed up the ideal aims of ALTO best: 

"The intent here isn't that ALTO would pick the globally optimal peers
for you, the intent is that it'll help an application reach a good set
of peers a bit more quickly." 

In other words ALTO will be great so long as it is lightweight and has
sensible ambitions!

Toby

____________________________________________________________________
Toby Moncaster, <toby.moncaster@bt.com> Networks Research Centre, BT
B54/70 Adastral Park, Ipswich, IP53RE, UK.  +44 1473 648734 

-----Original Message-----
From: p2pi-bounces@ietf.org [mailto:p2pi-bounces@ietf.org] On Behalf Of
Enrico Marocco
Sent: 19 October 2008 18:23
To: Narayanan, Vidya
Cc: p2pi@ietf.org; ietf@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [p2pi] WG Review: Application-Layer Traffic Optimization
(alto)

Narayanan, Vidya wrote:
>>> With respect to process, I think this one takes the cake among 
>>> abominations.  Having been at the IETF long enough and having 
>>> participated in several BoFs, I'm quite familiar with RFC2418 and 
>>> the process.  Here we have an effort that started with a 
>>> closed/gated workshop outside the IETF,
>> Actually, this is not so.  The workshop *was* sponsored by IETF; the 
>> RAI area, to be more precise (please see 
>> http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-announce/current/msg
>> 04758.html).
> 
> My point is that this was a closed effort - it was not a meeting that 
> was open to all for attendence.  The fact that the RAI ADs decided to 
> do this doesn't automatically make it "IETF sponsored".  Not to 
> mention that the topics covered by this workshop or the scope of it 
> was not really open to discussion at the IETF.  All of this makes it 
> sqauarely an effort outside the IETF and let's not try to pretend it 
> was somehow as open as other IETF efforts.

This is simply not true. The P2PI workshop was open to all (including
via jabber) and its main goal, as I read it, was to put together people
interested in addressing the issues P2P traffic poses for Internet
infrastructures. After that, two BOFs had been organized, in the very
same way BOFs are usually organized: some people get together, draft a
problem statement, set a mailing list up, add an entry in the BOF page,
involve the community, discuss, ask a meeting slot during an official
meeting, discuss, draft a charter, discuss, discuss... In a word, as
described in draft-narten-successful-bof.

Unfortunately it isn't possible to measure how much open an effort is,
but if you accept the number of contributions and contributors (as per
3978) as a somewhat meaningful indicator, for ALTO you can count 561
messages posted on the list by 67 different authors (from 6/9, when the
first BOF was announced, to 9/30, when LC began) and 6 I-Ds co-signed by
19 people (Authors and Contributors). Now, if you consider that no one
of such contributors have complained about feeling excluded and instead
all have agreed to move forward with the proposed charter (in fact they
have contributed to the proposed charter), I wouldn't say that it has
been a closed effort.

--
Ciao,
Enrico
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