IETF mission boundaries (Re: IESG proposed statement on the IETF mission )

[Christian Huitema]

> > According to you, this has nothing to  do with the IETF.  It might
> result
> > in the congestive collapse of the Internet,  but who cares, the IETF
> > doesn't do street  lights.  I would  like  to see  the  criteria
which
> > determine  that telephones belong on the Internet but street lights
> don't!
> 
> thanks for making the most concise statement of the conflict here in
the
> discussion so far!
> I think this point is one of the critical causes of conflict when
talking
> about the IETF mission - and unless we lance the boil, actually talk
about
> it, and attempt to *resolve* the issue, we will go on revisiting the
issue
> forever, with nothing but wasted energy to show for it.

Well, to paraphrase a well known leader, "the IETF, how many divisions?"
The gist of this comment is that someone developing a network
application protocol ought to somehow get a blessing from the IETF.
Reality check. Who got the IETF approval to deploy ICQ, Kazaa, or for
that matter HTTP?

If the Internet is so fragile that a poorly developed application can
break it, then the IETF response should not be to try control each
application. It has to be, design checks that can be implemented by
cooperating hosts and routers so that their neck of the Internet is in
good health!

-- Christian Huitema