Subject: [lemonade] The Box, The Picture, and The Reality

From: "Eric Burger" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 14:48:45 -0400

Things have gotten a bit out of hand here.

I have to apologize as chair that it has taken me 4 days to jump in.
While last Thursday's flame wars raged here, I was a bit preoccupied
(google Brooktrout or Excel and one will see why).

Well, I am back, and I am a bit disappointed at what I saw when I
reviewed the list traffic.

I have seen a number of ad hominem attacks, and not just from a single
individual.

I have seen a bunch of people talk past each other.

I have seen the mistreatment of a new member of the group (things on the
order of "you must be stupid or out of touch to even consider such a
proposal" and "trust us, we have decades of experience in the area").
Likewise, I have seen a lack of preparation (that could be avoided by a
simple application of RTFM and searching the work group mail list
archives).

So, some ground rules:
1. For the folks that have been here from the beginning, please have a
little patience when someone comes in with an idea that is 10 years old,
got a year of intense scrutiny, and got rejected.  Not everyone comes in
with the amount of collective wisdom that you have.  [Note appropriate
use of "you".  I mean "you" here.]

New folks are an important source of new blood, new ideas, and,
hopefully, document authors.

2. For the folks that are new, please review the relevant RFCs, drafts,
and list discussion.  One might want to google the list archive for
things similar to what one wants to do.  Likewise, one might consider
writing a draft - just as the research for a journal paper turns up
prior art and discussion right in the laser beam of what one wants to
do, one might find the idea is an old one.  Of course, if one has a new
angle, then by all means write the draft.

3. For any posting, if the words "you", as in "you are stupid"; "your",
as in "your idea is stupid"; "his/her", as in "his idea is stupid"
appear in the post, I would offer one should revise the text to take out
the personal or personal pronouns.  Why?  The obvious issue is you don't
want us to invoke the nuclear option (see RFC3683; the concept is
banishment) [again, here we mean YOU, the reader].  However, a more
important issue is that if one can restate the problem one has with a
posting in terms of the *problem*, instead of the *person*, then we can
examine the issues and make progress.

Clearly sometimes the recipient "does not get it."  In that case, take
the issue to the chairs; we will deal with it.  Please have patience: we
often work on 3-day cycles, not 30-minute cycles!

4. Since it came up in one of the posts, please remember that anyone can
write an Internet Draft and submit it.  I can write a draft about using
cow manure as transport for message submission for lemonade.  I can even
call that draft "draft-burger-lemonade-submit-patties".  Out of
courtesy, that draft will get posted to the Supplemental Web Page
<http://flyingfox.snowshore.com/i-d/lemonade> and will show up if one
searches the Internet Drafts archive for "lemonade".  However, unless
the draft is a work group draft ("draft-ietf-lemonade-*"), the document
has ABSOLUTELY NO STANDING in the work group.  See the disclaimer on the
Supplemental Web Page.

If you have made it here, that is great, because here follows a message
of substance.

As a reminder, Push E-Mail, a.k.a. using IMAP to submit messages, was
thoroughly examined in detail, with many advocates on both side of the
Push-versus-Pull debate.  In the end, the consensus* of the work group
is that both have advantages and both have disadvantages.  It is true
that both of these approaches can and have been deployed in closed
networks.  However, Push has some fatal flaws that make it extremely
difficult (if not impossible) to deploy on Internet scale.  Thus the
consensus* of the work group is that we will pursue Pull, and will not
revisit Push approaches.

As chair, this particular discussion is closed.

Be aware that postings on the Push-versus-Pull discussion MAY be
considered counter-productive to the progress of the work group.
Clearly, technical issues that have not previously been discussed are
not counter-productive.  Rehashing old arguments is counter-productive.

--
* If one wonders, consensus does not mean 51% vote; it often means that
even the folks "in the minority" understand and usually accept the
decision.  Push-versus-Pull is one of those decisions.  See RFC2026.

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---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 10:19:33 -0700

> I can write a draft about using

 > cow manure as transport for message submission for lemonade.

The work on Delay Tolerant Networking has had contributions from remote sensing 
researchers, such as for animal activities in the wild.  The work includes 
literally random-walk routing, with messages exchanged with whatever other 
neck-bound units wander by, until one of them gets close to a connected base 
station.

It strikes me that being able to deposit passive (rfid) copies randomly, which 
would be picked up by other mobile units, might improve system 
reliability/throughput, particularly when using a-social species for carriage.

So the main problem with your whimsical example is that it might be worth 
contributing to the IRTF DTN group.

And while no, I'm not really serious, it does underscore your point about being 
receptive to new ideas...

-- 

   d/

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  +1.408.246.8253
  dcrocker  a t ...
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