At 8:08 -0500 1/16/98, Dorian R. Kim wrote:
On Fri, Jan 16, 1998 at 06:07:27AM -0500, Chris Layton wrote:
On Thu, 15 Jan 1998, Dorian R. Kim wrote:
But isn't what you described implementation details? I'm not sure if I see a standard to track in this... Perhaps a better venue to track something like this is an IEPG/RIPE/IOPS/etc.
Since you suggest IOPS as a body to track this issue, what do people think
Well, sort of.. I just threw the name out there as a possibility, since it exists. This was not in any way an endorsement of IOPS as anything more than just that.
-dorian
Haven't had a chance to follow up, but my head is now above water. I had never heard of IOPS before.
From past experience with consortia, both inside and outside, I am a bit uncomfortable with them in a standards-setting role compared with the openness of IETF, IEPG, or NANOG. This is very pertinent to me at the moment as I hunt for a new job, as it would be quite impractical for me individually to participate in a group with significant up-front membership fees. ARIN is a current example of that.
Way back when OSI Was The Answer, I used to work for the Corporation for Open Systems -- in fact was the first technical person on staff. It had a model where members had the only input, which may well have led to the success of OSI. I've watched various consortia first restrict access to documents, and see an increasing trend in openness in such things as the ATM Forum. Somehow, the networking community has managed to escape the tyranny of Formal Standards Organizations. I well remember putting several performance standards through ANSI, getting to the Public Comment phase, and having to stop progressing the document until we responded formally to the "Digital Communications Performance Parameters are all very nice, but this document is flawed because it says nothing about saving the whales." I am _quite_ serious. So there is a delicate path to walk between the closed organization and the standards bureaucracy. It's my observation that we really lack a mechanism for propagating "operational" or "deployment" experience. IETF/IDR at least was willing to look at my multihoming draft. I have another document, tutorial/experienced based in a similar way, that deals with OSPF deployment methods. But since it's focused on enterprise networks, it really doesn't seem to fit the inter-carrier operations audiences. Howard