[ih] "The Great Debate"

Wed Apr 29 20:36:41 PDT 2026

The Internet Crucible's were published between August, 1989 and March, 1990
https://iconia.com/ic/

Marshall Rose's "The Open Book" was published January 1, 1990
https://amzn.to/4tLmJl8

The Tao of the IETF (RFC1391) was published January 1993
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1391

The Stockholm IETF meeting "fine (working) dinner" was in July 1995

when both yours truly and Marshall were living in SF Bay Area residents in
the 80's and 90's we would enjoy "fine dinners" out (IIRC sometimes also
attended by Ole Jacobsen) and talk about the IETF "standards processes",
"progress" (and lack thereof) as well as WG's (like the "Beachcombers
Working Group" at one of the Hawaii IETF meetings)

meanwhile yours truly's (and others businesses) were being summarily
"stymied"/"harmed" because the ineffective IETF PPP Standard Working Group
lead wasn't doing their "job" and the IETF "management" was doing anything
about it (as detailed in The Crucible Editions)

oh, and btw, we had another term: "a particularly fine dinner" vs. a "fine
dinner" is the difference between someone else paying for your dinner and
you paying for your own dinner.. and since IETF attendees were most likely
traveling on/for their employers, they weren't likely paying for them out
of their own pocket

g

On Wed, Apr 29, 2026 at 7:45 PM Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> What I remember about "many fine lunches and dinners" is that at the
> Stockholm
> IETF meeting in July 1995, the IAB held a very fine working** dinner in a
> private
> room at a ground-floor restaurant near the convention centre. What we
> hadn't
> realised was that we were very visible, as we ate and drank, for everyone
> walking
> between the meeting venue and the various hotels. We heard a lot of remarks
> about our conspicuous fine dinner the next day. The Open Book was well
> known
> at the time, and the fine lunches and dinners had made into the Tao of the
> IETF
> (RFC1391) - but misquoted, because the original context was to distinguish
> Doers from Goers. I will leave Geoff to explain that if he wants to.
>
> ** I swear we were working hard throughout the meal.
>
> Regards/Ngā mihi
>     Brian Carpenter
>
> On 30-Apr-26 13:16, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Internet-history
> wrote:
> > any vigorous enmity at that IETF meeting directed towards Marshall Rose
> for
> > the part in "The Open Book" regarding The IETF standards processes, the
> > "many fine lunches and dinners", et al. should be summarily (re-)directed
> > towards yours truly... who ghost wrote that section of "The Open Book"
> >
> > if your wondering about/what/why might have been the "inspiration" for
> > doing it... well it was Exactly The Same Impetus of yours truly
> > facilitating and launching the Internet Crucible publication, as
> summarily
> > explained, detailed and exampled in:
> >
> >
> https://elists.isoc.org/pipermail/internet-history/2025-April/010449.html
> >
> > g
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 11:35 AM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
> > internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> >
> >> On 4/26/2026 5:26 PM, Carl Malamud via Internet-history wrote:
> >>> In regards to Marshall and the OSI question, he gave a memorable speech
> >> at
> >>> an IETF plenary about how he had implemented OSI and he considered it
> to
> >> be
> >>> road kill in motion. He got a standing ovation from Jon Postel and
> >> others.
> >>
> >>
> >> Assuming we are thinking of the same event, this was Marshall's first
> >> time at an IETF and his presence and his presentation were carefully
> >> arranged.
> >>
> >> Marshall was working for me, at the time, and had just published his
> >> wonderful tome, The Open Book, about OSI.
> >>
> >> It included some discussion of standards processes, including reference
> >> to the IETF.  I'm not finding the relevant text that he made about
> >> standards processes but it included a summary assessment that these
> >> meetings were marked by "many fine lunches and dinners".
> >>
> >> He later reported that the OSI folk who read the book pretty much nodded
> >> in agreement with his characterization of the standards work.
> >>
> >> However many fine IETF folk took vigorous exception.  So there was some
> >> community anger with Marshall.
> >>
> >> His appearance at the Hawaii IETF was intended to mend the fence.  His
> >> presentation was stellar in form and content and was thoroughly
> successful.
> >>
> >> A bit of icing happened when I walked by a small group discussing what
> >> turned out to be final plans for the meeting t-shirt.  I injected the
> >> suggestion that at the bottom of the shirt's graphic, they should add
> >> "Many fine lunches and dinner" and they did.  And at the Plenary, they
> >> made a formal presentation of a shirt to Marshall.
> >>
> >> d/
> >>
> >> --
> >> Dave Crocker
> >>
> >> dhc at dcrocker.net
> >> bluesky: @dcrocker.bsky.social
> >> mast: @dcrocker at mastodon.social
> >> +1.408.329.0791
> >>
> >> Volunteer, Silicon Valley Chapter
> >> Northern California Coastal Region
> >> Information & Planning Coordinator
> >> American Red Cross
> >> dave.crocker2 at redcross.org
> >>
> >>
> >
> --
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-- 
Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
living as The Truth is True