mckenzie@LABS-N.BBN.COM (Alex McKenzie) (03/02/88)
I'm a little unhappy with the flames being sent to Brian Lloyd. I understood the basic form of his question to be: "If I invent my own option, is it likely to break other implementations? If anyone tells me that even one implementation is sure to break I won't invent my own option." This seems to me like the kind of reasonable and responsible behavior the folks on the tcp-ip list ought to be trying to encourage. It seems to me that we are not likely to encourage it if our response is to make nasty comments about Mr. Lloyd's motives. Mr Lloyd attempted to explain why he was thinking of inventing his own option. Lots of people told him why they thought it was silly, would be hard to implement properly, that there were alternatives, and so on. All those comments seem quite proper, and this message is not trying to suggest otherwise. If he wants to hang his ideas out in public he should expect them to draw critical comments. I think he acknowledged this in his last message. But I don't think its reasonable, or even in the group's own self interest, for us to flame him for asking the question. Cheers, Alex McKenzie