On Mon, 11 Jul 2011, William Herrin wrote:
If the complaint is that the IETF doesn't adequately listen to the
operations folk, then I think it makes sense to consult the operations
folks early and often on potential fixes. If folks here think it would
help, -that- is when I'll it to the IETF.
I started participating in the IETF 1-2 years ago. Coming from Fidonet
background, the threshold of entry felt very low, as long as you make any
kind of sense, people will discuss with you there and it doesn't matter
who you are. You don't even have to go to the meetings (I've only been to
a single one).
I encourage everybody to participate, at least to subscribe to the WG
mailing lists and keep a look out for the draft announcements and give
feedback to those.
If we in the ISP business don't do this, the show will be run by the
vendors and academics (as is the case right now). They're saying "come to
us", you're saying "come to us", and as long as both do this the rate of
communication is going to be limited. What is needed is more people with
operational backgrounds. For instance, I pitched the idea that ended up as
a draft, dunno what will come of it:
<http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/isis-wg/current/msg02556.html>
This has purely operational background and the puritans didn't like it
(they didn't even understand why one would want to do it like that), but
after a while I feel I received some traction and it might actually end up
as a protocol enhancement that will help some ISPs in their daily work.
Even something like your IGP isn't "done", and can be enhanced even if it
takes time.
--
Mikael Abrahamsson email: swm...@swm.pp.se
