IESG proposed statement on the IETF mission

[Michael Richardson]

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>>>>> "graham" == graham travers <graham.travers at bt.com> writes:
    graham> BTW, when is an application not an application ?  What are the
    graham> characteristics that make "controlling street lights" less of an
    graham> application than (say) calendaring and scheduling?  I don't

  The critical difference is whether or not multiple *operators* will have
to communicate using the protocol. 
  So, in the case of controlling street lights, it is pretty unlikely that
the Chicago Municipal Street-Light Control Network (CMSLCN) will have to
control lights located in New York City. As long as all of the equipement in
the CMSLCN.net are owned by CMSLCN.net, then CMSLCN is in a position to:
    1) dictate to their vendor what the standard will be.
    2) provision the equipment (in advance) such that things interoperate
    3) buy from whatever vendor pleases it most.

  As soon as the lights in NYC (owned, provisioned and bought by NYC) have to
operate with the light controller in Chicago, then we need an IETF standard.

  Clearly, it is easiest for CMSLCN.net if they have a proven standard with
products from multiple vendors that are already proven to interoperate, but
the lack of such a thing does not affect the internet as a whole.

  This is one of the reasons why MPLS, and to a certain extent "PPVPN" gets
downtrodden at the IETF - both are in many ways designed to operate within an
AS, so it isn't clear that we should allocate lots of time to them. Vis
multicast or IPv6, where it has been successfully deployed by many 
operators, but still isn't universally available, because it requires that
all the operators between the n-locations cooperate and agree to some set of
standards. (Not to mention that there be some rational business plan. Not
that IPv4 had a rational business plan when it started either!)

] Collecting stories about my dad: http://www.sandelman.ca/cjr/ |  firewalls  [
]   Michael Richardson, Sandelman Software Works, Ottawa, ON    |net architect[
] mcr at sandelman.ottawa.on.ca http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/ |device driver[
] panic("Just another Debian/notebook using, kernel hacking, security guy");  [
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