I had to quickly explain IETF to political decision makers. I think I did
not betray it in saying:
The IETF is a place where technical consensus among coopetition can be
reached in the areas of Internet legacy IP protocols, system and vision,
with the participation of anyone motivated.
jfc
15:44 -0400
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-alvestrand-ietf-mission-01.txt
A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts
directories.
Title : A Mission Statement for the IETF
Author(s) : H. Alvestrand
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: I-D ACTION:draft-alvestrand-ietf-mission-01.txt
A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line
Internet-Drafts directories.
Title : A Mission Statement for the IETF
Author(s) : H. Alvestrand
Dear Harald,
1. Very good work. Extremely clear and useful.
At 07:50 03/05/04, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
I have tried to incorporate the extremely useful feedback I got on this
list and from the Korea plenary.
I hope this is ready to send to IETF-wide Last Call.
This is your chance to get
--On 3. mai 2004 12:13 -0400 Susan Harris [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Nothing like jumping in late and editing the first sentence, but here
goes:
The goal of the IETF is to make the Internet work better.
This is phrased a bit awkwardly, and implies that the Internet isn't
working all that well
Sorry to have disturbed you Robert;-(...
But, I have to wonder what this URL is about, given your comment about geometry
being not spherical.
http://www.google.com/search?q=spherical+geometrysourceid=operanum=10
Google only found [Results 1 - 10 of about 221,000. Search took 0.24
On Thu, 11 Mar 2004, Einar Stefferud wrote:
Sorry to have disturbed you Robert;-(...
You didn't disturb me. I love this stuff:-)
But, I have to wonder what this URL is about, given your comment about geometry
being not spherical.
OK, I will explain a bit of history and mathematics.
) ie the Internet ceased at a firewall or other such IP level gateway.
Reading your definition, I cannot tell where you stand; are firewalls and
networks behind them included in IETF mission or not?
Tom,
reviewing, I cannot tell whether I answered this one or not
I was definitely intending
I find your definition of the Internet delightfully ambiguous. I was
taught that the Internet (as opposed to an internet or the internet) ...
been there, done that, sold the t-shirt:
But what *IS* the internet?
It's the largest equivalence class in the reflexive transitive
through public IPv4 addresses (this predates
IPv6) ie the Internet ceased at a firewall or other such IP level gateway.
Reading your definition, I cannot tell where you stand; are firewalls and
networks behind them included in IETF mission or not?
Tom,
reviewing, I cannot tell whether I answered
.
Reading your definition, I cannot tell where you stand; are firewalls and
networks behind them included in IETF mission or not?
Tom Petch
-Original Message-
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 11 February 2004 01:59
Subject: Continuing
) ie the Internet ceased at a firewall or other such IP level gateway.
I certainly agree on the ambiguous, but not with the delightful :-)
Reading your definition, I cannot tell where you stand; are firewalls and
networks behind them included in IETF mission or not?
Here, I feel that I stand firmly
On 18 Feb 2004, at 13:06, Tom Petch wrote:
I find your definition of the Internet delightfully ambiguous. I was
taught that the Internet (as opposed to an internet or the internet)
was
the public network accessible through public IPv4 addresses (this
predates
IPv6) ie the Internet ceased at a
On 14-feb-04, at 1:28, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
Good point. At least to make the point that the IETF sees the Internet
as a global phenomenon, and that its standards-setting therefore must
be global too - with English chosen for its utility, not its
affiliation.
Suggestions on which
On 10-feb-04, at 1:37, Dean Anderson wrote:
To work with suppliers, consortia, and other standards bodies
to
develop consensus and facilitate interoperability.
So how does the IETF do this? Talking to others only works in a
top-down organization, but not in a bottom-up organization. I
On 10-feb-04, at 22:43, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
I attempted to incorporate the latest discussions into an
internet-draft, which I managed to get out just before the
deadline
draft-alvestrand-ietf-mission-00.txt
Good stuff.
But wouldn't it be useful to say something about
--On 13. februar 2004 11:38 +0100 Iljitsch van Beijnum [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
On 10-feb-04, at 22:43, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
I attempted to incorporate the latest discussions into an
internet-draft, which I managed to get out just before the
deadline
draft-alvestrand-ietf
Thanks Dean - this collection was actually quite informative!
Harald
--On 4. februar 2004 15:49 -0500 Dean Anderson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Openness. Any materially affected and interested party has the ability to
participate.
Balance. The standards development process should have
Dear Fred,
you formulated this with real majesty. Good. IETF is a wise
men pow wow where users are represented by vendors and
its favorite matter is datagram internet scalability.
This puts free softwares and new generation networks out of
its scope. They are Research from what I understand. Why
Thinking out loud here, plenty of room for all to chime in. The key
differences, if there are any, between IETF and NANOG and her sisters, and
between IETF and IRTF, are:
Nanog should not be compared to the IETF. Nanog is a forum that has
promoted ignorance of the law or perhaps even
Dean,
the subject of the IETF mission is not particularly relevant to bashing
NANOG policies, or personal attacks on persons for their activities within
NANOG.
Nor are personal attacks appropriate on the IETF list.
If you want to quarrel about NANOG topics, at least change the subject
At 11:07 PM 1/29/2004, jfcm wrote:
This puts free softwares and new generation networks out of its scope.
They are Research from what I understand. Why not?
I don't think the IETF tells people how to charge; the software can be free
or not. I don't think the IETF cares, and I don't know that
participation in the RADB may be a
violation of IETF/ISOC/ICANN rules. And this should be redressed.
Thanks,
Dean Anderson
CEO
Av8 Internet, Inc
On Fri, 30 Jan 2004, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
Dean,
the subject of the IETF mission is not particularly relevant to bashing
NANOG policies
I'd like to come back to this point, and try a slightly different
direction:
Fred Baker wrote:
The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant, and
timely standards for the Internet.
I think I would state it in these words:
The Internet Engineering Task Force provides a forum
At 12:46 PM 1/29/2004, Leslie Daigle wrote:
I'd like to come back to this point, and try a slightly different direction:
Fred Baker wrote:
The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant, and timely
standards for the Internet.
I think I would state it in these words:
The Internet
Having your idea published isn't equivalent to having your idea heard.
of course not. most new documents in any series are ignored. very few
people other than professional propeller-heads in ivory tower actually
read every article in acm-sigcomm or every rfc that comes out or whatever.
o If one is revisiting the old ideas, they will most likely prefer
mailing list archives (due to its descriptive nature) than RFC.
Ummm, no. Most IETF mailing lists are pretty inaccessible to non-WG
participants because no one ever summarizes ideas before WG last call.
...
(note the
* This means drastically lowering the standards for what can be published
* as an RFC. (Note that this brings us closer to what RFCs used to be 15
* years or so ago.) Another way to do it would be to simply archive all
I do not believe that it means lowering the standards at all, in
*
* If it is important, it'll progress the work of some group in the
* IETF and be archived as an RFC. If it (the I-D) doesn't capture work
* well enough to be archived as an RFC then it ought to fade from IETF
* I-D storage.
Grenville,
Not all important ideas enter the working group
On 1/19/2004 1:01 PM, Bob Braden wrote:
Not all important ideas enter the working group process and emerge
as standards, and the fact that some working group chooses not to
capture an document does not make it necessarily unworthy of
preservation. After all, the technical problems evolve,
On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Eric A. Hall wrote:
Another approach here is to allow for the creation of ad-hoc WGs. That
would provide a cleaner path for tangential documents that don't fit
within existing charters, and would facilitate broader group review of
independent submissions. Speaking for
by submitting I-Ds (possibly pushed
to Informational) and then advertising compliance. To fix this
terrible shortcoming of the IETF Standards Process that hinders
innovatation by Microsoft and other leading edge organizations, the
new IETF Mission Statement will require that anyone who
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Good grief.
I don't know that we're changing anything in what the IETF does. What is
happening is that the IETF is growing up and taking control of its own
destiny in a variety of ways, and trying to clean up its own processes. In
all the *other*
Bob Braden wrote:
*
* If it is important, it'll progress the work of some group in the
* IETF and be archived as an RFC. If it (the I-D) doesn't capture work
* well enough to be archived as an RFC then it ought to fade from IETF
* I-D storage.
Grenville,
Not all important
On 1/19/2004 3:47 PM, Vernon Schryver wrote:
Not all important ideas enter the working group process and emerge
as standards, and the fact that some working group chooses not to
capture an document does not make it necessarily unworthy of
preservation. ...
Another approach here is to
RFCs.
I'm only pointing out that calls to have the IETF Mission Statement
broaden the scope and quantity of documents to be published suggest
ignorance of search engines or needs to have things endorsed by the IETF.
] From: Fred Baker [EMAIL PROTECTED]
] I don't know that we're changing
Vernon Schryver wrote:
From: grenville armitage [EMAIL PROTECTED]
...
then that's a problem we can fix without creating an indestructable I-Ds.
...
[..]
I have never failed to find copies somewhere
on the net. Today the only aspect of an I-D that expires after 6 months
is
- Original Message -
From: Bob Braden [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 1:01 PM
Subject: Re: The IETF Mission
* Is the standard for Informational currently that onerous?
Certainly not. But the community (and especially its
Hi,
On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, Fred Baker wrote:
At 04:26 AM 1/17/2004, Pekka Savola wrote:
The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant, and
timely standards for the Internet.
I think I would state it in these words:
The Internet Engineering Task Force provides a forum for
On Sun, 18 Jan 2004, grenville armitage wrote:
I'm not sure I see the ambiguities you assert.
I think this is because you use the narrow interpretation (e.g., the
actual network deployment) of the terms -- which is fine. My problem
with that, though, is that people can have a broad
Yes. So let's consciously endeavor to ensure that sigificant
non-standards documents -- responsible position papers, white papers,
new ideas, etc. -- become RFCs. (Making Internet Drafts into an
archival series seems like a terrible idea to me, but that is a
different topic.)
I could not
On 18-jan-04, at 19:39, Bob Braden wrote:
So let's consciously endeavor to ensure that sigificant
non-standards documents -- responsible position papers, white papers,
new ideas, etc. -- become RFCs.
Sigh. Even more RFCs. Pretty soon we're going to need a 32-bit RFC
number space.
(Making
On Sun, 18 Jan 2004 10:39:51 PST, Bob Braden said:
Yes. So let's consciously endeavor to ensure that sigificant
non-standards documents -- responsible position papers, white papers,
new ideas, etc. -- become RFCs. (Making Internet Drafts into an
archival series seems like a terrible idea to
Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
[..]
Actually it's pretty much the same topic, as there needs to be a way to
preserve drafts that are important in some way or another.
If it is important, it'll progress the work of some group in the
IETF and be archived as an RFC. If it (the I-D) doesn't
On 18-jan-04, at 23:17, grenville armitage wrote:
Actually it's pretty much the same topic, as there needs to be a way
to
preserve drafts that are important in some way or another.
If it is important, it'll progress the work of some group in the
IETF and be archived as an RFC.
Really. What's
Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
On 18-jan-04, at 23:17, grenville armitage wrote:
[.]
If it is important, it'll progress the work of some group in the
IETF and be archived as an RFC.
Really. What's the number for the GSE RFC again? Even current work such
as
At 00:24 18/01/04, Fred Baker wrote:
But it originates with a very real and very damaging operational problem,
that of BSD 4.1's predilection to TCP Silly Window Syndrome and an
operator's desire to minimize the impact of that on competing data traffic.
Dear Fred,
thank you for your inputs. You
Bob,
I agree that many works of great value can be found in early RFCs. But
here's my question to you: if the focus is too much on standards, how do
we scale the process so that we can have great works that are NOT
standards? Clearly neither the IESG nor the IETF need be involved in
that
... Another way of looking at this would be to create some sort of
refereed track.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (who shall govern the referees?) note that
for a long time, peter salus begged the Computing Systems readership for
articles, and usenix ultimately closed it down due to lack of
- Original Message -
From: grenville armitage [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: IETF Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: The IETF Mission
Is the standard for Informational currently that onerous?
I'm curious what the average time-to-publish from first
On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 04:13:48 GMT, Paul Vixie [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
independent (non-series) document, then havn't we achieved gutenberg's goal,
doesn't everybody have their own printing press, and can't we either choose
an existing refereed forum for non-standards work, or just self-publish
Hello all,
Sorry for opening this obvious can of worms (well, I think it has been
opened a number of times, so the worms are probably already gone
now..), but when considering how the IETF needs to change, it's
obvious that we'll first (unless we just stick to the relatively
safe changes, like
Harald's section on The IETF Mission.
Though it's pointless to try to substitute my wisdom for that of the
IESG, I will suggest some food for thought:
1) The IETF has always chartered Working Groups. Doesn't that belong
fairly high in our priorities?
2) There is a long tradition of waiting
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At 04:26 AM 1/17/2004, Pekka Savola wrote:
The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant, and
timely standards for the Internet.
I think I would state it in these words:
The Internet Engineering Task Force provides a forum for the
I'm not sure I see the ambiguities you assert.
Pekka Savola wrote:
[..]
- These are so overly broad statements that they're close to unusable
UNLESS you believe IETF is just a rubber-stamping standards
organization. For example, what constitutes deploying networks?
IETF certainly
. And that are in and of themselves the same for
all they are applied to or around.
Todd Glassey
- Original Message -
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2003 9:44 PM
Subject: RE: IESG proposed statement on the IETF
to be careful about what we consider part of
the IETF mission, if we cannot get basic agreement upon the implications
of the mission statement.
On the other hand, we see a protocol like RADIUS, which the IETF
has never done a good job at working with or standardizing, being
developed in 4
- Original Message -
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand [EMAIL PROTECTED]
True. Nearly a year ago, we attempted to publish
draft-iesg-vendor-extensions, to describe these problems in more
detail -
but we failed to get that finished.
I should probably get out more, but I wasn't familiar
--On 24. oktober 2003 18:07 +0300 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi Harald,
I'm going to pick on one statement, which other have as well.
It is important that this is For the Internet, and does not include
everything that happens to use IP. IP is being used in a myriad of
real-world applications,
Hi Harald,
I'm going to pick on one statement, which other have as well.
It is important that this is For the Internet, and does not include
everything that happens to use IP. IP is being used in a myriad of
real-world applications, such as controlling street lights, but the
IETF does
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Harald == Harald Tveit Alvestrand [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Harald In the discussions leading up to this document, we actually had 3
Harald different other levels of inclusivity up for consideration:
okay, I very much like these descriptions.
if the truth hurts - but it is what it is.
Todd
- Original Message -
From: Spencer Dawkins [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2003 7:40 PM
Subject: Re: IETF mission boundaries (Re: IESG proposed statement on theIETF
mission )
The number
. This
should be changed. The IETF mission should make clear what the
constituencies are, what the goals are, and what the priorities are, so
that the tail does the wagging.
It used to be that engineering and operations within a company cooperated
together, sharing work and, of course, passwords
The number of application protocols with the oomph to break the
Internet is quite small
however, it's not safe to assume that it's zero. any new killer app that were
poorly designed could do it.
also, you might be underestimating the damage done by HTTP (1.0 or later).
The number of application protocols with the oomph to break the
Internet is quite small
OK, I've gotta ask - how many times do we break the Internet before we
reverse this reasoning? (How many times is too many?)
(signed) curious
Dean Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, mark seery wrote:
Trust model
=
Inherent in Eric's problem statement is the notion that end systems have
the ability to impact the experience other Internet users have. Whether
this is the result of an historical trust model, where people
On Wednesday, October 15, 2003, at 12:57 PM, Eric Rosen wrote:
The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant, and
timely
standards for the Internet.
It is important that this is For the Internet, and does not include
everything that happens to use IP. IP is being used in a
Simon Woodside;
Yes, and towards a possibly more contentious application, see Voice over
IP. Lots of VoIP work is being done without involving the internet at
all. Used by telecoms for telecoms applications, where best effort
isn't good enough because it needs to keep working when the power
From: Eric Rosen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
...
Sheesh!--next you'll be telling us that you never heard the phrase
out of scope before last week.
Sure I have. There's hardly a piece of work done by the IETF that someone
hasn't claimed to be out of scope. It's just that the phrase is not
Scoping is certainly used successfully as an argument at the WG level,
through the more common pronnouncement that would require a change
to the charter.. Scoping aids WGs in being able to move the ball
forward in the direction of predfined goals, and hence is a process aid.
This is
The example I'm thinking about involved predecessors to OpenGL.
As this example doesn't even involve communication over a network, I would
agree that it is out of scope. ...
[OpenGL example]
It's not that other examples such as X couldn't have used more network knowledge to
avoid problems
to say no and having
the power to say no and make it stick or even just not be forced to
waste time in bureaucratic appeals.
What's the purpose of this IETF mission statement effort? If it
involved better specifications of what the IETF doesn't do, I'd be
happy. Instead it seems to involve replacing
Vernon,
I'm not much for mission statements either. But it's easy to fall into
a Dilbert view of the world, even when such things might actually help.
I think the intent is to derive from some community consensus on goals
how to evolve the organization. And we are at a crossroads. Either we
On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, mark seery wrote:
Trust model
=
Inherent in Eric's problem statement is the notion that end systems have
the ability to impact the experience other Internet users have. Whether
this is the result of an historical trust model, where people using the
Internet
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?
The fact that someone did something without the IETF's approval does
!
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
since both you and Scott pointed out this one
--On 15. oktober 2003 12:48 -0400 Keith Moore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant,
and timely standards for the Internet.
I actually believe IETF has a somewhat wider purpose than that.
--On 16. oktober 2003 13:15 -0400 Eric Rosen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
- For the Internet - only the stuff that is directly involved in
making the Internet work is included in the IETF's scope.
In other words, routing, DNS, and Internet operations/management.
Adopting this as the IETF's
Christian,
we might be looking through opposite ends of this tunnel.
--On 16. oktober 2003 15:15 -0700 Christian Huitema
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
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
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.
In the discussions leading up to this document, we
Harald.
Interesting, important, thanks.
Internet usage
==
One of the large dynamics not explicitly mentioned is the increased
commercial usage/value of the Internet and how that drives the community
in new directions.
Trust model
=
Inherent in Eric's problem statement is
That is wrong or at least a gross overstatement.
If that's what you think, I invite you to make a list of all the
IETF-standardized protocols and explain how they are all (or even more than
50% of them) needed to make the Internet work.
There have been many things that the IETF
From: Eric Rosen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
That is wrong or at least a gross overstatement.
If that's what you think, I invite you to make a list of all the
IETF-standardized protocols and explain how they are all (or even more than
50% of them) needed to make the Internet work.
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
statement on the IETF mission, you should make it clear
that the IESG is proposing to make a complete change in the IETF mission.
Instead, you give the impression that the IESG thinks that for the
Internet is and has always been the IETF's mission.
The formulation I like
On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:48:37 EDT, Keith Moore said:
I certainly don't believe only in rough consensus and running code -
I also believe in explicit definition of goals and requirements,
careful design by knowledgable experts, analysis, iterative
specification, wide public review, etc.
Of
It's an interesting document, but it looks to me a bit much
like a problem description and I'm not sure how it relates
to other existing work (the problem description document in
the problem working group, most obviously). I particularly
liked the discussion of the IETF mission - it could provide
keep clear themselves on what the fundamental principles are, and
to reiterate them when necessary (like now). That's part of the social
contract itself. There are principles which are at the heart of the
organization and which the (pseudo-)consensus process doesn't get to
touch.
The IETF Mission
overall, I like the document. some comments:
However, while Dave Clark's famous saying
We do not believe in kings, presidents, or voting.
We believe only in rough consensus and running code,
is this an accurate quote? I've usually seen it written
We reject kings,
The purpose of the IETF is to create high quality, relevant, and timely
standards for the Internet.
It is important that this is For the Internet, and does not include
everything that happens to use IP. IP is being used in a myriad of
real-world applications, such as controlling
Hi Scott,
Similarly for almost all of the rest. What's the point? Are you
reiterating the problem-statement work? They're doing all right,
although perhaps you could help push the work to completion. It would
be much more useful for you to reaffirm the fundamental
principles that are
One would hope instead that the IETF would want to
encourage competition between different views of Internet evolution, as the
competition of ideas is the way to make progress.
what I would say instead is that the IETF should encourage this competition
within the sphere of architectural
On Wed, Oct 15, 2003 01:01:53PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] allegedly wrote:
Hi Scott,
Similarly for almost all of the rest. What's the point? Are you
reiterating the problem-statement work? They're doing all right,
although perhaps you could help push the work to completion. It would
The IETF Mission and Social Contract
Introduction
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open
international community of network engineers concerned with the
evolution of the Internet architecture and facilitating the
operation of the Internet. In the seventeen years
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