ISSUE: Timeframes shold be focused on IETF purposes, not markets

Harald Tveit Alvestrand harald at alvestrand.no
Wed Jun 11 16:10:42 CEST 2003


The second of my 2 issues of the day - this may be slightly more 
controversial....

Section 2.2 of -issue- says:

   The frequent inability of the IETF to deliver specifications within
   the timeframe that the markets need and the excessive perfectionism
   that is exhibited in some cases could both be improved if appropriate
   Engineering Practices were in use.

ISSUE: This sentence presupposes that the "timeframe the markets need" and 
the "appropriate quality" are relatively quantifiable quantities. I think 
they aren't.
SUGGESTED RESOLUTION: Replace "the timeframe that the markets need" with 
"the timeframe in which IETF particpants think they are needed to further 
the mission of the IETF".

I've got no particular bones to pick with the basic sentiment of the 
paragraph.

But I think that the ratholes we can get into when debating what it means 
that the market "needs" something is even deeper than the ratholes we get 
into when we debate what the IETF participants think is needed.

Let's keep it simple (when we can).



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