Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

IETF Turns Introspective With New Wiki

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the history-trying-not-to-repeat-itself dept.

alphadogg writes to tell us that the Internet Engineering Task Force has decided to document the successes and failures of past standards and the reasons why. The hope is that lessons learned can influence future decisions. "Grading the success of the IETF standards can also serve several other functions, Crocker pointed out. It could help working groups focus their thinking on how their standards may get implemented, acting in effect a bit like a report card. A secondary benefit of the wiki is that it could serve as an aid in public relations, a place for the standards body to tout its successes. This is not the IETF's first foray into deriving lessons learned from its own work, Housley said. In 2007, Microsoft software architect Dave Thaler gave a talk at the IETF 70 meeting, held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in which he outlined some of the factors that make a protocol a success."

13 comments

  1. What makes standards work by idontgno · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Rough consensus and running code"

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  2. This will probably be a good idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    *if* they can marshal the manpower to maintain it properly, and understand that public engagement requires that you *engage*, and that you remember that all the smart people don't work for you; neither of these is easy.

    (Ok, Slashdot? No, I am *not* not logged in, and *nine times* is my limit for trying to fix your stupidity. -- jra)

  3. ... patents! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    VRRP, philosophically,
    must ipso facto standard be
    But standard it
    needs to be free
    vis a vis
    the IETF
    you see?

    But can VRRP
    be said to be
    or not to be
    a standard, see,
    when VRRP can not be free,
    due to some Cisco patentry..

    Singing...

    La Dee Dee, 1, 2, 3.
    VRRP ain't free.
    O P E N B S D
    CARP is free

    http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35

  4. IETF Security Standards by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looking at the summary of security standards, it seems (roughly) that all the IETF ones have failed and all the external-to-IETF ones have succeeded. So if you want a security standard to work it seems the rule is don't get the IETF to design it.

  5. The company that came up with Microsoft Bob by shoppa · · Score: 1, Interesting

    In the mid-90's, when the Web was becoming Wide, even World-Wide (Wow!), Microsoft decided that the web was entirely inadequate for the real needs of computer users. Instead, MS came up with its paradigm for how it would dominate the future of computing in hope of displacing the www. What did they come up with?

    Microsoft Bob

    And this company is lecturing the world on how to come up with good protocols?

    To be fair, Comic Sans MS was a font developed for Microsoft Bob, and seems somehow to have become one of the more commonly used font on the web.

    Tim.

    1. Re:The company that came up with Microsoft Bob by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I suppose the reason IETF standards are becoming irrelevant is the inability of geeks to move on from their fixation on things like MS Bob. Because it's so much less work to pitch snide remarks about 15 year old flops than it is to write new systems and protocols.

    2. Re:The company that came up with Microsoft Bob by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Comic Sans MS is the font equivalent to the auto-tuned musical "star" of your choice. It's a horrible font in nearly every way possible, but it looks cute so people adore it. Also it is the only font from Microsoft with personality, where personality is assumed to include originality. All the usual Microsoft fonts are knockoffs of other fonts except Tahoma, which is as bland as possible in the name of readability. The people have declared that they do not give a shit about readability. And let's not forget the abomination that is Arial...

      BOB has nothing to do with protocols. If you want to pick on those you need to pick on NetBEUI and SMB, both of which have enough design flaws to drive a train through. And many have...

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  6. The Tao of IETF by anomalous+cohort · · Score: 1

    It doesn't surprise me that the IETF has gone introspective since they have already turned to taoism.

  7. Not the first forray into deriving lessons learned by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, I believe Microsoft learned the lesson well... "In 2007, Microsoft software architect Dave Thaler gave a talk at the IETF 70 meeting, held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in which he outlined some of the factors that make a protocol a success." With the help of the IETF MS learned that you can influence an standards body by ensuring the people voting are on your side (well actually cram it with your own set of last minute voters) resulting in standards that even 'they' (MS) can not implement. Such a standard.

    So should we be happy that the IETF is teaching companies how to sway the standards committees?

    anon

  8. Re:Not the first forray into deriving lessons lear by Philip_the_physicist · · Score: 1

    You're thinking of ISO, not IETF. Whilst MS were part of the push to allow patents in IETF standards without a royalty-free licence, they have been a lot less harmful there than in other bodies, perhaps because of the requirement for running code, and since they can ignore the IETF entirely when they want to much more easily than they can other bodies.