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

[Adrian Farrel <[e-mail]>]

Hi again Vijay (and noting Tommy’s important intervention)

 

[snip]

We felt that archiving this information in the RFC may be misleading and also unfair, and so we suggested removing the implementation status section of the document before publication.

Those are valid concerns, indeed.  However, I note that the entire RFC process is an iterative process itself.  When we release an RFC as a PS, we release it with the knowledge that there may be some design choices that could be revisited at a later stage.  Ergo, if an implementation tracks the RFC closely, the underlying assumption would be that the implementation may well be updated at some later time as the RFC moves through its states from Proposed to Draft to Internet Standard.  To be sure, I am not saying that we should simply archive any half-baked or incomplete implementation, rather rely on the knowledge of the authors of the I-D and the chairs, and perhaps even the IETF interoperability process for the RFC, to only archive those implementations that are worthy of being archived.

 

AF> You capture an important aspect, but I was concerned about the other side of it. It one company has implemented at the time the RFC is published, but others have not yet then the RFC stands forever (or at least until it is replaced or updated) without mentioning all of the other companies that implemented just a week to late to be documented. That is not very fair on the new companies and a little misleading for readers of the RFC.

 

AF> I don’t think we want to be publishing new RFCs just to update this list, so keeping the list out of the RFC seemed better.

 

[snip]

With author hat back off, I’m slightly wary about the IETF becoming a venue for advertisements, so I would encourage people to be quite careful about how this sort of information is collected and maintained.

I suspect that you imply advertisements as indicated by the domain name in an email address of the source code's author.  

 

AF> Ah, no. I meant (possibly as suggested by Joel) commercial advertisements (as in “promotional material”). In many cases, implementation is described as “Company X’s implementation of this specification” and includes product names and release numbers. We do want that information but we don’t want this to be used as a way of saying that Company X makes splendid boxes and Company Y produces rubbish.

 

The law of unintended consequences may yet still strike, I don't claim to foresee all problems.  But insofar as we seek "rough consensus and running code", having "running code" from multiple strains of company (or individual) DNAs seems like a reasonable goal.

 

AF> Absolutely! 

 

AF> In our RFC, we were looking at how information about running code may influence the standardisation process. You are looking at something slightly different, and that is a good thing. Engaging with Tommy on this sounds like a sound idea.

 

Best,

Adrian