Re: [tcpm] poll for adopting draft-gont-tcp-security

[Lloyd Wood <[e-mail]>]

On 4 Jul 2009, at 20:27, Joe Touch wrote:
>
>>> If you care that much about the implementations,
>>> then change them. It'd be more productive than simply documenting  
>>> what
>>> has been implemented instead.
>>
>> Implementation experience is an important input to developing and
>> refining an IETF standard.
>>
>> The IETF standard can't be defined wholly on paper theoretically de
>> jure, or wholly in implementations de facto. There's a meeting in  
>> the middle - hence
>> consensus and code.
>
> Please review sec 9.1 of the TAO of the IETF.

You might want to reread that. From section 9.1 of the Tao of the IETF:

'One of the oft-quoted tenets of the IETF is "running code wins"'

> The running code is to
> prove that the standards are viable.

No. 'One of the oft-quoted tenets of the IETF is "running code wins"'

The code is rather the _whole point_ of the exercise. No  
implementations,
no point.


> It's the two together that are
> meaningful. I.e., standards AND running code, not running code THEN
> standards based on them.

and not, as your 'change the implementations' line at top suggests,
standards THEN running code. It's a collaborative feedback loop,
not a one way process from document to code carried down the mountain
to the poor saps at the bottom.

Documenting what is implemented and used widely matters more than
standards that aren't implemented.

Running code wins.

>> I know the M in TCP stands for minor, but really - why are we even
>> bringing up standards arguments, when an informational doc would  
>> suffice?
>
> draft-gont-tcp-security reads like BCP, and recommends changes that
> would require it to be standards-track.

It recommends changes only to what was previously documented,
which has long been superseded by implementations. Not to reality.
(I suggest informational as a workaround, so that the standards
wonks can continue to believe all is right in their world.)

Running code wins.

(If TCPM doesn't take on this work, then TCPM is irrelevant, and the
IETF likely abdicates any authority it had on TCP. Still, there's
always adding new stuff to SCTP, eh?)

L.

DTN work: http://info.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/saratoga/

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