Re: [idn] iDNS re-chartering proposal, take 2

[Dave Crocker <dhc@dcrocker.net>]

At 04:20 PM 10/28/2001 -0600, Eric A. Hall wrote:
>  Instead, they raise more artificial barriers.

The purpose of a charter is to make clear what IS to be done and what IS 
NOT to be done.  As such, raising barriers is one of the requirements for a 
good charter, if the working group is ever to be productive.

Let us be clear about the term "productive".  Discussion, debate and 
learning are all interesting and worthy activities.  However, none of them 
is the goal of an IETF working group.

The goal of an IETF working group is to produce a specification that gets 
used.  Hence it must solve a real problem, solve it in a manner that others 
find useful, and solve it in a timely manner.

Protracted debate ensures that none of these criteria is satisfied.

For example, this group has gone at least one extra year longer than it 
should have, given the urgency of the problem it is trying to solve.  As 
such, there is some potential that independent, proprietary (ie, closed) 
solutions will render the IETF work irrelevant.


> > 2.  Focus on the production of a single technical specification to be
> > offered as a standard.  Hence the working group is no longer exploring,
> > researching or otherwise having broad discussions.
>
>Some of the proposals are at odds with such an objective

How very strange.  Some of the proposals do not want a single technical 
specification, or they do not want to stop researching?

In any event, that is the problem.  Failing to converge on a single 
specification often kills working group utility.


>, and so the
>adoption of this objective would only serve to narrow the work items.

Excellent!  That is exactly what the proposed working is intended to 
accomplish.  Unless the work items are narrowed, no work gets done.


>For example, UDNS requires a coordinated release for at least two 
>purposes: so that name lengths can be synchronized, and so that delegation 
>entities can
>coordinate delegations they make as UTF-8 and ACE encoded representations 
>of the same UCS string.

uDNS a) is not a complete specification, and b) imposes operational 
requirements that are not viable in the existing DNS infrastructure.

It also does not have much practical support.


>Additional beauracracy does not result in better science. Let's let the
>technology compete on its own merits, okay?

We are doing engineering, not science.  Perhaps that disparity of view is 
the source of some difficulties among participants.

d/

----------
Dave Crocker  <mailto:dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg InternetWorking  <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253;  fax +1.408.273.6464