Re: how to deal with liaison statements

[Fred Baker <fred@cisco.com>]

At 07:53 PM 3/12/2003 -0500, Scott  Bradner wrote:
> one of the topics that has come up on various lists over the last few 
> weeks (most strongly on some of the sub-ip lists) is the issue of how the 
> IETF deals (or actually does not deal) with liaison statements from other 
> organizations
easy. tell the organization to send a person to say what the liaison 
statement says. In my experience, the person says something very different, 
and very much more intelligent, than the letter. :^)

OK, so I read it. Basically, he says that a liaison is a letter from one 
organization to another, and sometimes wants a response from the other 
organization from the corresponding opposite number and at the same level. 
What he describes is very much "here's how we do it in the ITU; you should 
do the same thing."

OK, even I can write a letter, if the format looks mostly like an email...

My only real comment is that the ITU has never sent us the liaisons that we 
asked them to send us, regarding new work that they wanted to take on, and 
the liaisons I have seen from them and others have mostly been horribly 
useless. I didn't even understand the one from Hal Folts in SG 16 telling 
ieprep that there was an organization in the ITU that we should be 
corresponding with and taking direction from until I asked him about it, 
and then my answer was as simple as I could make it - silence. I had no 
intention of taking direction from anyone at the ITU, especially Hal Folts, 
and most especially since Hal Folts works in the IETF. I have not followed 
the work in SG 15; it may differ from that in SGs 16, 13, 11, and 3. But we 
could discuss the inability of Roy Blane to understand the subject being 
discussed between SG3 and enum, the irrational nonsense we get from SGs 11 
and 13, and so on. My stomach would be happier not having to think about it.

If ITU wants to send us useful liaisons, I suspect that it won't be too 
hard to generate replies to them that they would consider useful even if 
we're hicks from the hinterlands. If they want to continue in the direction 
they are going, I don't think an explanation of "what is a liaison and what 
am I supposed to do with it" will be helpful. We hicks from the hinterlands 
don't find high falutin' nonsense to be very interesting.