At 04:13 PM 4/2/2002 -0500, John C Klensin wrote: > -- this >collection of cats seems determined to not be herded, and I >doubt that either of us could do much better were we sitting in >the Chair.
indeed. >I wish, too, that the WG would simply omit something and go >silent -- what is disturbing to me about this round of >discussions is how much they are going over old ground, yup. >What I am objecting to is your tactics. I don't think we make >progress by making up rules and trying to enforce them, or by >bending the rules to your (or even my) personal convenience. I agree. Therefore it is a good thing that that was not what I am trying to do. And as responded earlier, this has nothing to do with my personal preference. Personally I find discussions of usability issues quite delightful, since they permit me to indulge in my original formal training. What is, instead, at issue is working group progress and productivity. This is more mundane than making things personal, but it is also more relevant. > To >take one of the clearer examples, I found the "user interface" >discussion during the Minneapolis "keyword" BOF interesting and >helpful, 1. I suppose it is heartening to hear that someone found the Keyword BOF enlightening. All I can do is applaud your skills at extracting benefit. 2. Perhaps the Keyword BOF has some relevance to this DNS working group, but it escaped me in that BOF and it escapes me now. 3. Even as an example, I do not know how an early-stage, unfocused discussion about keywords has any relevance to a late-stage DNS working group specification effort. >(i) The charter doesn't say what you seem to think it does. The >wording "...specify the requirements for internationalized >access to domain names and to specify a standards track protocol >based on the requirements..." The goal of requirements is frequently in a charter and is just dandy for early-stage working group effort. To the extent that anyone feels that it is worth reviewing and writing formal IDN working group requirements, that might even be OK. However the current thread has not been attempting that, nor is such a goal typical at such a late stage, usually because it is not very productive. As to the protocol specification work, I will reiterate my request that you explain how any of this thread relates to it. The request was intended to move from abstractions to specifics. While such a move is anathema to many of the critics of this working group's efforts, it is nonetheless the usual way IETF working groups makes progress. > was very carefully chosen. It >does not say "produce a solution that gets Unicode names into >the DNS". John, presumably you offer a quoted phrase, like that, because it has some relevance to what I said. That relevance escapes me, since I made no such statement. Please feel free to clarify. > I think reasonable people can read what it does say as >including discussions about what is actually required and where >in the stack to do it I'd find it interesting to see some explication of how this thread was doing more than rehashing old issues. Rehashing old issues is a frequent basis for declaring a topic inappropriate for continuation in an IETF working group. >Which, however wrongheaded or misguided some of us think the >UTF-8 discussion to be, and however ill-advised a few of us >think one or two of the clarifications in RFC 2181 are, makes >that arguably in-charter too. As long as we are beating dead horses, let me reiterate that things that are reasonable in the early stages of a working group are not reasonable in the late stages, especially when those stages are separated by years. And I will repeat my query as to how this thread shows any actual or possible relevance to the protocol specification work of this group. Not theoretical, John. Actual. The criticisms in this working group have a massive tendency towards assertions of theoretical fact, often without theoretical or experimental basis. They also have a massive tendency to avoid moving to the pragmatics of specifics. >(ii) It is possible to argue that once a WG is chartered to >produce a protocol, it must produce a result, and the IESG must >accept that result because the WG put in a lot of work on it and >reached some sort of consensus. Again I find it impossible to guess how this line of comment is relevant here. No one suggested anything about the IESG, such as it being a rubber stamp, nor any of the rest of the possibilities you cite. Please clarify. d/ ---------- Dave Crocker <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com> tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850
