At 08:27 PM 8/4/2002 -0400, Sean Donelan wrote:
On Sun, 4 Aug 2002, Dave Crocker wrote: There is a difference between technical/operational matters and policy matters. I respectfully disagree this can be treated as a technical problem.
Yes, it's essential to be clear about technical spec. vs. policy spec, although they seem to have some overlap. Maybe a lot. But no, that does not make them the same. However the list of questions you asked, in the note I was responding to, looked like technical choices. My assumption was that the "policy" issue was in choosing between technologies. I consider the IETF Best Current Practises label as intended specifically for guidance in operations matters. Hence the suggestion to consider it.
What group is the best forum for developing consensus views on Internet operation policy issues?
In between pure tech specs and abstract policy discussion there is technically based consideration of tradeoffs, etc., for technical alternatives. That's not something to leave to purely policy folk and my sense is that the IETF venue can work for such discussion.
One of the Mr. Clarke's complaints in his speech was there is no group the government can go to find out what the consensus view of Internet operators is. IETF doesn't appear to want to take on that role.
Hmmm. As soon as a policy becomes multi-operator, I'll bet it starts looking like a technical spec. d/ ---------- Dave Crocker <mailto:dave@tribalwise.com> TribalWise, Inc. <http://www.tribalwise.com> tel +1.408.246.8253; fax +1.408.850.1850