Re: IESG's Review of EMSD Specification

[Mohsen BANAN <mohsen@neda.com>]

Bob, 

This is a private response.

I am taking your suggestion and I stifle -- at least for now.

>>>>> On Thu, 11 Feb 1999 14:11:54 -0800, braden@ISI.EDU said:

  Mohsen> *> 
  Mohsen> *> 
  Mohsen> *> The spirit of that section is to accommodate parallel
  Mohsen> *> experimentation and to introduce competition amongst
  Mohsen> *> protocols.  Right?
  Mohsen> *> 

  Bob> Mohsen,

  Bob> In general, a competition among ideas is a GOOD thing, but a
  Bob> competition among protocols is a BAD thing.  A network protocol is
  Bob> intended to provide interoperability, and having more than one protocol
  Bob> for the same application or service is clearly the antithesis of
  Bob> interoperability.

At the Experimental/Informational level, a protocol and an idea are
not all that different. That is why we have all those labels
Proposed/Draft/...

The notion of "competition" came into this thread when the IESG said
that they want to do a similar protocol.


  Bob> One of the reasons for NOT publishing EMSD would be the fear that you
  Bob> foolishly imagine EMSD to be in competition with SMTP.  Although I am
  Bob> not speaking for the RFC Editor here, I suspect that the RFC Editor was
  Bob> willing to publish your protocol ONLY because it is for a specialized
  Bob> domain in which over-engineering is appropriate.

EMSD is not in competition with SMTP. NEVER have I suggested that!
That would be foolish to imagine.

EMSD emphasizes EFFICIENCY for low band-width environments.  That is
repeated manytimes in the spec.  You can reasonably say that EMSD is
over-engineered for Efficiency for specialized environments such as
wireless. 

The notion of "competition" came into this thread when the IESG said
that they want to do a similar protocol.


  Bob> I keep suggesting to you that you stifle, and you keep
  Bob> ignoring my suggestion.

  Mohsen> *> The idea there is that no one group has exclusivity
  Mohsen> *> on good ways and good ideas and that RFC publication
  Mohsen> *> can help parallel experimentation. Right?
  Mohsen> *> 

  Bob> Wrong.

  Bob> Bob Braden (speaking for himself)


As I have said before, the IESG's primary problem appears to 
be a case of Not Invented Here. Publication of EMSD is good for
everybody else.


Publishing this Informational RFC is very important to me and many
others.


...Mohsen.