Re: sasl in beep or payload

At 05:04 PM 12/19/2001 +0000, Stephen Farrell wrote:
>You seem to think that I support changing the protocol to
>include sasl in the payload and I get the impression that
>you've also guessed that I'd prefer to use http. Its
>interesting that you got that so wrong! In fact, I'd be
>quite happy with sasl-in-beep, but am following what I
>see as the consensus.

1.      I should never sent strong notes before finishing my morning 
coffee, and would greatly appreciate everyone pretending that I had not 
made the egregious error of including personal content in my posting.

         Working groups CAN have a chair also be an editor of a working 
group document, but only when there is essentially no controversy in the 
work.  As a very strong rule, it appears to be essential that working 
groups doing anything with complexity and/or controversy separate the two 
functions into two (or more) different people.  It is essential that the 
chairs focus on constructive and timely process, and in these cases that 
requires not being affiliated with any side of a controversial topic.

2.      The IETF principle of rough consensus contains subtleties and 
complexities that we all often miss.  A working group can reach rough 
consensus that there will be world peace tomorrow.  It won't be turned into 
a standard.  A working group can reach rough consensus that a new 
application it is specifying requires that the Internet infrastructure be 
changed to provide consistent inter-packet spacing.  It won't be turned 
into a standard.

         The pure democracy of rough consensus has some balancing 
requirements and filters.  Rational choice is one of them.  There has been 
some pointed commentary, from ADs and others, about this working group's 
need to make choices that do not add unnecessary complexity and to be 
careful about a number of very serious problems with using HTTP.  Hence, if 
the working group decides to persist with the complexity in question and/or 
persist with a focus on using HTTP, it needs to respond to the specific 
technical concerns that have been raised.  So far, that response is missing.


>You also seem to think that polling just those who'd
>implement sacred isn't valid.  Well, in the case of
>where the sasl pdus are placed, I disagree, but would
>of course welcome arguments to the contrary.

In a sufficiently narrow context, polling them is just fine.  Using such a 
polling as the prima facie basis for making a major working group decision 
is in fact not valid, no.

There is nothing that has demonstrated that that very limited sample -- 
sacred programmers who happen to be in the wg meeting at the time of the 
polling -- is expert about Internet protocol DESIGN choices.  Of course 
they are important.  They are full participants in the process.  Giving 
them exclusive choice, however, is not valid, no.

A working group chair making a default choice, absent objections, is a 
valid mechanism, as long as the choice has sufficient basis.  The risk of 
making the default choice without sufficient basis is that it stifles 
actual participation, at a minimum due to frustration.

d/
----------

Dave Crocker  <mailto:[email protected]>
Brandenburg InternetWorking  <http://www.brandenburg.com>
tel +1.408.246.8253;  fax +1.408.273.6464