jones@ingr.UUCP (Mark Jones) (10/21/88)
I have begun wondering, how does an Idea become a standard? Who waves the magic wand, says the magic words "I pronounce the a standard for the people to implement" and makes the idea become a reality. My reason for asking is that I think EGP3 stinks. It has massive problems, the EGP3 mailing list group is dead, the authors don't respond to queries or complaints, and someone (hopefully someone with influence) needs to be told about the problems. Mark Jones
ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (10/23/88)
EGP3 is been substantially revised since you've probably last seen it. I'd reserve the comment "it stinks" until you have actually built one or two large networks and know what the problems are. How any idea becomes a standard is that the people spend time working over it at the Internet Engineering Task Force. When they have produced a document that satisfies them, it is sent to Postel to become an RFC. Postel is the RFC editor and filters out the crud. I suppose the Internet Activities Board has final say, but after it's met the watchful eyes of both Postel and the IETF, then it's probably pretty safe. The IDEAS directory hasn't been updated recently because it was being abused. The major problem is that it was specifically created for working documents and hair brained ideas so that they could easily be disseminated and discussed before being cast as standards. Unfortunately, people insist on jumping the gun and referencing them as standards even before they are done. The problem is that we would like them to get wide dissemination to people like yourself who would like to comment on them, but we don't want people either implementing them or specifying that they be implemented, as it turns out that can cause greater problems when the revised protocol is finished. There is an IETF mailing list that you are free to join. Send mail to IETF-REQUEST@venera.isi.edu. -Ron