RE: Reacting to previous messages

[Bernard Aboba <aboba@internaut.com>]

>i am very concerend that cisco seem to think that IETF WG proposals
>that dont fit in with their "easiest path to product lines" are so
>worth supressing.

Please, let's not go down the road of attacking companies and by
implication, everyone who works for them. This contributes little
to the discussion and makes the IETF a less pleasant organization
to work with. 

Also noone has suggested that this work be suppressed. The
discussion merely is about *where* it should proceed. 

>A new WG is proposed precisely because there appears to be sufficient
>interest and motivation for exploring new models of multicast.

Interest and mnotivation alone are not sufficient justification 
to form a working group in the IETF. Technical maturity is 
an important additional factor. 

In general, I would observe that the IETF is a place to standardize 
things we know how to do. The IRTF is the place to figure out how 
to do things we haven't done before. SM seems to fit into the later
category. 

>the models are not ones that require academic research - they requie
>engineered protocols and then market research.

I would suggest that doing useful "market research" on this topic is
probably more difficult than solving the technical problems. Most
customers could not care less about the underlying protocols used
to deliver multicast packets, and thus are not likely to contribute
useful information to a market survey or focus group. 

However, customers *do* care quite a bit that their multicast  
applications (many of which are now deployed in mission-critical 
situations) continue to function.

>cisco seems to think it has a monopoly on understanding what the
>market wants, and is almost alone in consistently opposing even
>talking about this...

For a topic on which discussion has allegedly been suppressed, 
there are certainly a lot of mail messages floating around :)

 >if you did see this, then it is dishonest to represernt the SM effort
 >as attempting, intending, or even having this effect.

Oh, so what exactly *was* the purpose of the press release that went
out earlier this year? 

 >>i dont believe cisco engineers (or others) any more
 >>qualified than "academics" and "researchers" 
 >>to comment on markets and so on. 

I beg to differ on this, Jon. Having been both an
academic and (now) in the commercial sector, I tend
to have a lot more interactions with customers now 
than I did while I was at the University. 

In general, I'd observe that being a large company with lots of 
customers tends to make you a servant to the market place, 
rather than its master. Large customers who bet their 
business on products tend to be quite vocal about what 
they expect in return for their money. It is not 
possible to avoid hearing from them, even if you wanted to. 

In many ways, it saddens me that the IETF doesn't have more 
participation from customers than it does. Such direct feedback has
turned out to be quite useful when we have gotten it (i.e.
during the IPv6 debate). However, IT budgets are very tight, and
often IETF participation is viewed as a "frill." As a result, 
customers often tend to voice their opinions second hand, by
making them known to their vendors. In general, they don't
bring those concerns to the nearest university.