Complex Problems

[Brian E Carpenter]

The data I have are that for draft-iab-arch-changes-00.txt 
(February 2002) we got about 4 messages from non-IAB members,
before we let the draft drop. For draft-iab-principles-XX.txt in 1996, 
which became RFC 1958, we got about 15 comments from non-IAB members. 
(In both cases there were also open discussions at IETF meetings, so 
this is not the complete story.)

I agree that other related work was done recently, and we did get 
lively comment on the transparency and middlebox drafts (RFC 2775
and RFC 3234) for example. So maybe my original statement was a
bit pessimistic.

   Brian

john.loughney at nokia.com wrote:
> 
> Brian,
> 
> > > I think the mismatch between the WG short-term engineering model and the
> > > need to do work at a "principles" level is worthy of being called out as
> > > part of our "problem statement".
> >
> > Undoubtedly. But a closely related problem is how to get the IETF at
> > large to put effort into work at the "principles" level. My efforts
> > last year to get input for a revision of RFC 1958 were an exercise
> > in frustration.
> >
> > This was very different from 1996, when we got lots of input
> > for the original version of RFC 1958.
> 
> You raise a very important issue here.  If in 1996, there was a lot
> of input on architectural issues but last year there was very little -
> what is going on?  Is it that people don't care anymore, are the burnt
> out, or the stress of everyone's day job's is too much?  For some
> reason, it may be so that people are less committed to these principles.
> Do we need to re-energize folks on this or is it the communities feeling
> that this is someone else's problem - or could it just be that folks
> need to be educated on this?
> 
> thanks,
> John

-- 
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Brian E Carpenter 
Distinguished Engineer, Internet Standards & Technology, IBM 
On assignment at the IBM Zurich Laboratory, Switzerland