Re: Consensus? RFC1628 to Historic

[Bob Stewart <[e-mail]>]

At 08:58 AM 7/30/98 -0700, C. Adam Stolinski wrote:
>I had no idea that the IETF had become another "Alice in Wonderland"
>spec group!

Alice in Wonderland or not you don't appear to be aware of either the IETF
standards process or the reasons behind it.

>Is it about standards for implementation - or about busying ourselves
>with "workgroups"???

It's about practical, working standards.

>RFC 1628 works, is implemented by the entire UPS industry, and nobody
>feels that it needs any changes.  So, the IETF position is lets make it
>obsolete, because there is no activity in the WG?????

No, it's because there's no way to tell a standard that nobody cares about
from one that's good unless the people who implement it take the time to
say so.

>There is a difference between "work" and "makework".

Most of the people I know who are involved in Internet standards have more
work than they can already handle.  They're unlikely to make work just so
they can apppear busy.

>"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

If you can't tell whether it's a viable standard, don't leave the illusion
that it is.

The work involved falls mostly on the working group chair, collecting
implementation reports and writing a recommendation for advancement to
Draft Standard, then repeating the effort to promote to full Internet
Standard.

The maxim you suggest should be invoked when people start suggesting
significant changes to the standard itself.

	Bob