Re: An IETF repository for working code in our protocols?

["Joel M. Halpern" <[e-mail]>]

Vijay, I do not see how the code quality things is too work.
While I do not like the idea, if the community wantede it I could see 
the IETF providing repositories for any code that claims to implement 
specific RFCs.
Even if we were to do that, I can not see how or why we would want to 
get into judging the quality of the code.   that sounds like a recipe 
for disaster.

Yours,
Joel

On 8/20/2020 5:15 PM, Vijay Gurbani wrote:
> Dear Melinda: Thank you again for your time.  Please see inline.
> 
> On Thu, Aug 20, 2020 at 3:42 PM Melinda Shore <[e-mail] 
> <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> 
>     On 8/20/20 12:28 PM, Vijay Gurbani wrote:
>      > So the problem is simple: When we have high quality
>     implementations for certain protocols that we standardize, can we
>     come up with a place to park these implementations so they can be
>     used by implementers to get a head start?
> 
>     TBH you lost me at "high quality."
> 
> 
> :-) We can have a gradient measure instead of an absolute measure, sure, 
> no problem.  "Sufficiently reasonable quality starter code", then :-)
> 
>     Anyway, I'm still unclear on why this would be a sufficient
>     improvement over existing mechanisms (basically, open source +
>     decent search engines + WG wiki pages with links to implementations
>     and other resources) to justify the effort and possible legal
>     complications.
> 
> 
> Imagine if we told implementers that we know this RFC has an errata, but 
> with due diligence, please find them yourself.
> 
> To my earlier point again, WG pages, WG Wiki pages, datatrackers, all 
> make sense to you and me.  Not to many people who will like to implement 
> our protocols without burying themselves deep into IETF lore [1].  When 
> I talk to developers at companies and students at universities, if they 
> have heard of IETF at all, it is mostly through knowing that some 
> organization called IETF produces these RFCs.  That's it.  Perhaps for 
> them that is enough.  And if you buy that argument, then the corollary 
> is that we should do everything in our power to make sure that they have 
> all of the information they need to implement the protocol from the RFC 
> itself.
> 
> [1] They should, but that is another discussion.  I certainly have 
> benefited tremendously from my association with the IETF.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - vijay