Re: Understanding response protocols

On Oct 20, 2004, at 12:24 AM, Hector Santos wrote:

> You continue to show your true colors, odd and evil nature and 
> character.

?Evil?  Keith is *evil* because he is unwilling to accept a new 
interpretation of a standard that has been interpreted another way for 
a quarter century?  I would be most grateful if everyone involved could 
try to keep this discourse a bit more civil.

Those of us who've been  working on these things for a long time have 
come to understand -- sometimes very painfully -- the incredible cost 
and difficulty of tinkering with the installed base.  It's never easy, 
and I've never seen anything accomplished simply by redefining the 
meaning of an existing standard.

> Its too bad the IETF needs to get a bad rap because of people like you.

My impression is that the IETF's "bad rap" is predominantly of the form 
"IETF is too slow to get the job done."  The primary reason we are slow 
is that we are open to a constant influx of newcomers who don't 
understand the past, who seem to be doing their best to condemn us to 
repeat it, and who need to be (slowly) educated on the complexities of 
the underlying problems and the existing systems.  I think it's great 
that there is new blood constantly coming into the organization, but 
we're paying a very high price for that, in that we have to continually 
recapitulate past discussions, design decisions, and lessons learned.

I know of no other standards body that makes it so easy for people to 
come in and present their own perspective than IETF.  Unfortunately, 
this also means that no other standards body is so easily derailed by 
misinformed or wrongheaded volunteers.  Before you get too negative 
about the IETF, you should try getting yourself a seat at the table for 
discussions of W3C, ISO, or even OASIS standards.  The fact that people 
are willing to listen to almost anyone here should, in my opinion, be a 
strong motivator for people (especially those who don't represent giant 
corporations, for whom the IETF should be a particularly precious 
institution) to restrain themselves to polite and civil discourse. -- 
Nathaniel