Re: Single vs many solution(s)

All,

since became co-chair of the ppvpn more or less over one single night,
I still have some reading to do to get up to speed on the ppvpn side.

However, I do have some opinions on e.g. "single vs. many" and where
we should try to go.

Some of them are "programatic", the type of position a wg chair will
always need to take - until provoen wrong. Others are specific and
realting to the discussion on the number of solutions for l2vpns in
ietf.

Programatic:

1. as a working group or as a standards organization it is our
    goal/task/duty to come up with one single standard per problem.

2. we need to recognize that there are several problems, and sometimes
    they look very similar, and that they may require very different
    solutions

3. not being able to agree on a single solution is not a failure, the
    standards organization don't make market decisions, at best it can
    be supportive. If we don't agree the market will decide.

Specific:

1. so far I've seen multiple solutions aiming to solve the same
    problen, e.g. the vkompella vs. kkompella discussion

2. the thread so far has been interesting, e.g. Ross' dsicussion on
    situations where "we" have taken decisions to forward more than one
    solutions. Though I don't think Ross would like to go as far as to
    say that we should aim for multiple solutions and let the market
    decide

3. if it is true that we are trying to solve one single problem - and
    given that this problem needs to be more precisely stated - then I
    will as wg chair work for one singel standard coming out of the wg

4. if on the other hand it is possible to show that there are two
    separate problem that requires separate solutions I will try to
    promote solutions that addresses the problems

5. the discussion on this thread so far is a bit of disappointment,
    since it very much goes along the lines "my solution is better than
    yours", rather than "I think the solution should be differnet from
    what you propose, because ..." or "yes you have a solution that will
    work in the situation you describe, but there are further problems
    that needs to be address by differnt solutions"

So until someone proven that that e.g. the kkompella and vkompella
addresses different problems I will try to make the wg adopt only one.
But I won't cry if we can't, we just send both of them "experimental"
and revisit the question in a couple of years and promote one of them
to PS (market decide).

If we can clearly desccribe the two problems we are trying to solve, and
it can be show that two solutions solves those two pa*roblems, then I'm
fully prepared send multiple solutions to IESG and request they are
made PS.

Any volunteer to try describe the problem space(s)?

I guess they same goes for the different discovery approaches.

/Loa

BTW - I suggest tht we start dropping copies to the ppvpn-list for
anything that is not vpn generic.

-- 
/Loa

mobile + 46 739 81 21 64
email: [email protected]