[ih] "The Great Debate"
Brian E Carpenter
brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com
Wed Apr 29 21:58:57 PDT 2026
This is fascinating. I just had a look for "PPP" in my IAB email archive from that period. As a new IAB member, I was worried that the IAB was not terribly well thought of and we made an attempt to find out what people thought. An IAB member had this to say in May 1994:
"3) A relatively new complaint that the IETF is becoming too bureaucratic, more
and more like ISO. This comes under different tones. I have heard it from
XXX, also from YYY. YYY is griding one
particular axe: he believes that the IETf is now too open, to the point that
any jerk that comes in and pays his fee can endlessly block a working group. I
bet he was thinking of PPP, but other example may exist. This view is not
uninamous - see the exactly opposite position of ZZZ."
Then in February 1995, Fred Baker wrote (in public as far as I can tell from the email headers):
"I, as chair of PPPEXT, am hearing from various sources "we want to work
with the IETF to generate interoperable standards, but it appears that the
timeframe required to generate them exceeds our threshold of pain, so we
feel forced to use proprietary means and perhaps publish them as
informational RFCs". Wherever one might point claiming to assign blame, it
is the IESG that provides management oversight for the IETF and therefore
it is the IESG that must fix the
problem with delays. So far, it has not done this. And at this point, I
feel that the IESG itself is a major factor in the delays."
Then in March 1995, Bill Simpson posted a formal appeal:
"Formal IAB appeal: IESG paralysis and inactivity
...
If all such appeals are to be in open forum, and we have to wait for an
IETF Plenary to be held to consider an appeal, please add formal appeal
of the IESG inactivity regarding PPP Compression to your docket.
The PPP WG submitted PPP Compression over a year ago...."
This was all about IPR claims by a large company. I daresay it was one of the topics during the fine IAB dinner in Stockholm. The IETF hadn't yet figured out how to deal with contentious IPR claims. I think we do better now.
Regards/Ngā mihi
Brian Carpenter
On 30-Apr-26 15:40, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow wrote:
> CORRECTION: missing a NOT in "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 NOT doing anything about it (as detailed in The Crucible Editions)"
>
> g
>
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2026 at 8:36 PM the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff at iconia.com <mailto:geoff at iconia.com>> wrote:
>
> The Internet Crucible's were published between August, 1989 and March, 1990
> https://iconia.com/ic/ <https://iconia.com/ic/>
>
> Marshall Rose's "The Open Book" was published January 1, 1990
> https://amzn.to/4tLmJl8 <https://amzn.to/4tLmJl8>
>
> The Tao of the IETF (RFC1391) was published January 1993
> https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1391 <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 <mailto: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 <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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto:dave.crocker2 at redcross.org>
> >>
> >>
> >
> --
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> --
> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com <mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com>
> living as The Truth is True
>
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>
> --
> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com <mailto:Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com>
> living as The Truth is True
>
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