Deciding between two choices

[Margaret Wasserman]

At 10:24 PM 12/19/2002 +0200, john.loughney@nokia.com wrote:
>Margaret,
>
> > Ignoring me tentative analysis of the cause, would you agree that
> > we have a problem with making, and sticking to, decisions?
>
>In the groups that I have worked in, I have not really noticed this
>behavior.  Are there good examples out there you could quote?

The SNMP security effort (called SNMPv2 at the time) was stuck
for a while, due to two competing proposals that were not
technically all that different.  I think they were called SNMPv2*
and SNMPv2C.

We had trouble closing on a single DNS discovery/resolver autoconf
mechanism in the IPv6 group.

I've heard, but have not personally witnessed, tales of competing
proposals de-railing other WGs.  Would anyone like to cite their
favourite example?

And, I think we have all experienced the fact that long-lived
WGs tend to revisit the same technical decisions every two or
three years.

>I do think that the IESG has taken on some work because they realized
>it would get done with or without the IETF's approval and a
>calculation was made that maybe the IETF could help bring the
>work to a better solution than if it was left to its own.

I'm not sure what you mean.  Could you give an example?

Margaret