Re: Keeping working groups open: Was Re: A non response ...

[Marshall Rose <[e-mail]>]

> Sorry, I agree with Karl. The arrogant, high-handed, and somewhat arbitrary
> attitude of the SNMP directorate has been responsible for alienating a number
> of potential contributors and either delaying or precluding fixing serious
> shortcomings in the management architecture. Remember suggestions, oh, about
> four years ago that perhaps the "powerful" GET-NEXT and UDP were not adequate
> for large bulk-data retrieval? Remember a suggestion regarding the naming of
> interfaces which have no IP address? Being ridiculed in semi-public fora such
> as the SNMP and IETF mailing lists for daring to *suggest* that the Lords of
> Network Managment might have missed something does not encourage one to
> participate in the process. And no, I don't believe I am the only person to
> experience this joy of ridicule - other people whose technical expertise I
> greatly respect have also abandoned the whole network management effort
> largely due to this sort of abuse of the process.

Vince - if you have specific process complaints, then I urge you to air
them before the IESG and the IAB.  Particularly, if you can believe there
is any inappropriate behavior on the part of myself or the SNMP
directorate.

I have not been a member of the NM AD directorate for nearly two years.  As
IESG AD for NM, a position I have held for one month, I am currently
responsible for the SNMP directorate.  As such, any complaints regarding
the NM AD directorate should be directed to me, or if you feel that I am
acting inappropriately, you should contact the IESG as a whole, or its
chair, directly.

With regards to the specific issues you raise, I will remind you that it is
one thing to complain about weaknesses, perceived or real, about the
framework; it is quite another thing to suggest specific solutions that are
able to whether considerable scrutiny.  This has perhaps been the greatest
source of tension in the SNMP community--while many people complain, few
people actually sit down and propose specific solutions expressed as cogent
text, so that others may evaluate the proposal.  Regrettably, for the small
percentage of people who do write proposals, these proposals are sometimes
contrary to the SNMP philsophy, and therefore have significant,
undersirable impacts on the architecture.  I would prefer that the
situation were otherwise, but that's the way I see it.  Others, of course,
are free to disagree.

I will certainly agree with you that bulk retrieval with get-next is not
*the* optimal solution.  But, I hope you will agree with me that the
get-bulk proposal was the first proposal which was both consistent with the
SNMP philosophy and had a minimal footprint in terms of implementation.

Finally, the reason why I got involved in this thread is simple: there is
an extremely limited amount of SNMPv2 expertise available, and only a
fraction of people with that expertise are willing to reply to messages on
the public list.  As IESG AD for NM, I just don't have the time anymore to
help out; others are busy working on products; others would like to spend
more time with their families, etc.  Now, given this lack of resources, it
is important that people act responsibly in the messages they send.  It
probably took Keith 30 minutes to compose a reply to Karl's message
complaining about the number of pages in the SNMPv2 specifications.  This
is not a productive use of Keith's time.  But, Keith feels he has to do it,
and give it high priority, 'cause it's "damage control".  The loser in this
case is the community, because Keith has less time, and maybe even less
inclination, to answer questions on the list.

I am not suggesting that we engage in censorship, merely self-restraint.
If someone has legimitate questions, of a novice or advanced nature, then
they should ask them.  Further, they are entitled to an accurate and
thoughtful answer.  But, someone has really gone too far this week, and
on reflection, I don't think it's me.  You are free to disagree, of
course.  If you consider this attitude to be "arrogant, high-handed, and
somewhat arbitrary", then I apologize.  Perhaps when more people are
willing to invest their time in answering questions, then this will be a
non-issue.

/mtr