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

[Vince Fuller <[e-mail]>]

    Karl - The current policy exists in order to focus standardization
    efforts while allowing implementors to exchange information.  I have yet
    to see a demonstration of a weakness in the current policy.
    
    The only weakness is that the community continues to tolerate pointless
    messages of little or no redeeming value.  Unfortunately, it is
    impossible to mandate good taste or professional responsibility.  The
    problem is not that people with "competent, but perhaps not completely
    perfectly formed, comments" are discouraged from speaking.  The problem
    is that some people who could contribute competent comments do not do
    so, but instead send pointless messages to multiple mailing lists.

Sigh. This message has been building for several years as I've stood by the
sidelines and watched, at ever growing distance, the Network Management
"process" in action. I probably should stay out of this, but this sort of
proclamation from the soi-disant Network Management Directorate is getting
rather old. Jets and afterburners on...

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