Re: [v6ops] draft-ietf-v6ops-mobile-device-profile last call- "harmfully broad"?

["STARK, BARBARA H" <[e-mail]>]

> So all this document is doing is setting a collective roadmap, rather than expect vendors to do their own thing. Given we agree on the above, this is not harmful.

It’s not clear to me who this “collective” is. It seems like here the "collective" is the set of authors, but some people fear the outside world might view "collective" as "IETF". That seems to be a major sticking point, and, I think, the perceived potential "harm". It's very clear to me that "collective" is not "IETF" (and informational RFCs should never be seen as "collective" = "IETF", though some on the outside do have difficulty with this concept); nor is "collective" all wireless operators. It's just the authors.

I remember back when DSL was in its infancy, and telcos were struggling to deploy due to the lack of DSLAMs and DSL modems. Several got together, formed a single-purpose "joint procurement group", defined common requirements, and all issued the same RFP.  This was done external to all SDOs or other industry groups. Companies who were not part of this joint procurement group benefited as well, because then they could say "I'll have what they're having." It's very common for the companies who deploy later to use the approach of deploying what the "market leaders" are deploying. This way they don't need to have people who read/understand RFCs and such. They just trust that the "market leaders" have such people and know what they're doing. An added benefit of waiting for "market leader" deployment is that "unrealistic" RFP requirements have been weeded out by that time. As someone who has helped write many RFPs I can say with certainty that there were "must" items in all those RFPs that never made it into the deployed products. Once a timeline or price tag is associated with a "must", it can lose its "must"-ness.

Barbara