Re: Fwd: Re: IP: Microsoft breaks Mime specification
* * But the use of a trademark, which stands for complies with RFCs * could be incredibly valuable. * Kyle, I suggest that you read RFCs 1122 and 1123 from cover to cover, and then ponder whether the nice-sounding phrase complies with the RFCs has any useful meaning. Perhaps you will begin to understand why the IETF Way is interoperability testing, not conformance testing But you are free to make your proposal at IAB plenary of the next IETF. This discussion is in a loop. Bob Braden
Re: Fwd: Re: IP: Microsoft breaks Mime specification
* But the use of a trademark, which stands for complies with RFCs * could be incredibly valuable. I suggest that you read RFCs 1122 and 1123 from cover to cover, and then ponder whether the nice-sounding phrase complies with the RFCs has any useful meaning. Perhaps you will begin to understand why the IETF Way is interoperability testing, not conformance testing But you are free to make your proposal at IAB plenary of the next IETF. Thanks for the comments Bob! I think there is very much a misconception as to what I am proposing. As I've mentioned, I absolutely, positively do not want conformance testing, of any kind! Purely an IETF endorsed logo. If you *want* to use a logo, you send in your $50-$100, sign the agreement that says your product works with the RFCs, and you get permission to use the trademark. Procedures would have to be in place to provide a logo yank process in eggregious abuses. It shouldn't be easy to yank a logo, it should be thoroughly peer reviewed. I wouldn't even mind if it took 12 months+ to yank a logo. What I am fundamentally looking for here is a procedure by which there is a control mechanism for defining a vendor trying to be interoperable (which is a huge consumer, customer, and vendor benefit) vs. a vendor that is using taking standards and abusing them in the marketplace. When you yank the logo, it's not like you can't still sell your product. It's just for us, as a vendor, having something like this allows us to contract to supporting interoperable third party vendors that are well behaved, and we get an opt-out on vendors whom the IETF community has put a big red X on. Zero, and I repeat Zero conformance testing. The reality is, standards and RFCs are going to get it only mostly right the majority of the time, and standards need to change. But the good faith intentions of a vendor towards interoperability should not change. The very simple logo idea I am proposing is purely a visible rating system at to the good faith intentions of a vendor to be interoperable. I am just saying, we need to reward intoperable vendors with the logo, and give CIOs the option to sign deals with vendors who are truly faithful to standards. I think this idea could help all of the markets significantly in terms of giving everyone a visible mark of interoperability. You get the mark until you absolutely, positively aggregiously abuse it. For 99% of the companies supporting IETF this will be extraordinarily valuable, and help all of us sell our products as well as get some money to have some IETF parties. :) This will only be a pain in the butt for the 1% of particularly powerful vendors who are unwilling to support IETF standards. Kyle Lussier AutoNOC LLC
Re: Fwd: Re: IP: Microsoft breaks Mime specification
On Sat, 26 Jan 2002 18:14:56 PST, Kyle Lussier [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: It's just for us, as a vendor, having something like this allows us to contract to supporting interoperable third party vendors that are well behaved, and we get an opt-out on vendors whom the IETF community has put a big red X on. There's problems here: 1) Two logo'ed products can still fail to interoperate. Remember - this thread was started by a failure to interoperate. But by the time the IETF even *heard* about the MIME bug that started this discussion, the vendor had already acknowledged it was a bug, and assigned a bug ID to it. So the vendor is being responsive, keeps the logo - and it didn't tell you anything about the product. 2) Two X-out'ed products can still manage to interoperate. 3) If there's *no* conformance testing, what does it *actually* tell you other than the company had $100 and bothered sending it in?. 4) What do you do if you spec that logo on an RFP, and only one vendor has a logo'ed product - and it's the worst of the bunch? I have in my bedroom a night light, which I purchased at a local grocery store. It has a UL logo on it, which doesn't tell me much about its suitability as a night light (I can't tell if it's bright enough, or if it's too bright, or what its power consumption is), but it *does* tell me 2 things: 1) It has been *tested* and found free of any known safety design problems. It may not *work* as a night light, but it won't shock me when I go to throw it in the trash can because it's not suitable. 2) A high enough percentage of night light manufacturers get UL listed that I can afford to be suspicious of any company that doesn't have the logo on their product. Ask yourself this - if there's no up-front testing of minimum compliance, how is the $100 any different from the money customarily paid in some parts of the world to the representatives of the local insert ethnic-based organized crime syndicate? Valdis Kletnieks Computer Systems Senior Engineer Virginia Tech
Yes, conformance testing required... Re: Fwd: Re: IP: Microsoft breaks Mime specification
Kyle Lussier wrote: [..] As I've mentioned, I absolutely, positively do not want conformance testing, of any kind! [..] What I am fundamentally looking for here is a procedure by which there is a control mechanism for defining a vendor trying to be interoperable (which is a huge consumer, customer, and vendor benefit) vs. a vendor that is using taking standards and abusing them in the marketplace. Interoperable with what? Interoperability testing occurs between implementations, and doesn't require reference to a document or specification. Conformance testing is, essentially, interoperability testing against an implementation that has previously been declared standards-compliant - the reference implementation. Your process for yanking a logo requires a vendor's implementation to fail an interoperability test against a known standards compliant implementation. Anything less would make the logo meaningless. That smells dangeoursly like conformance testing. And that's why you're getting such push-back. cheers, gja
Re: Yes, conformance testing required... Re: Fwd: Re: IP: Microsoft breaks Mime specification
Your process for yanking a logo requires a vendor's implementation to fail an interoperability test against a known standards compliant implementation. Anything less would make the logo meaningless. That smells dangeoursly like conformance testing. And that's why you're getting such push-back. Well, this comment is undoubtedly going to cause some more push-back. :) I seem to be getting two conflicting viewpoints: #1 Vendors can only be trusted to be interoperable on their own, and can not be forced to conform. #2 Vendors absolutely can't be trusted to be interoperable, without conformance testing. I guess everyone approaches things in different ways. And that's why I made the proposal. Because this idea works with either viewpoint. Personally, in this particular kind of massively distributed, diverging objectives scenario, I say trust everyone to do what's right and then use the logo yanking process to (1) identify ill behaving vendors / products, (2) give them double reasonable opportunity to correct, and then in the absence of any good faith effort (3) publicly (but nicely) flog them by yanking the logo. Trust everyone to do what's right. Reward the people who do the right thing (by allowing them to use the logo). And people who do the wrong thing can lose it. I'm not really a believer in conformance testing, because the space of the Internet is so rapidly evolving, anything you test against is a moving target, and because something conforms at one point, it may not next week. I think that sentence addresses the majority of problem-type criticism the idea has had. I am absolutely on everyone's side and agree with everything posted as such. Everyone has listed problems, but no one has said they can't be worked around. I'm just looking for a solution that creates significant, immediate benefit for people who try to follow standards. And when bad vendors come around and start doing bad things to hurt interoperability (an incredible benefit to customers, consumers, you name it), the IETF makes it easier for Mostly, I'm looking for some level of easy-in product segmentation for contractual, customer visibility, and CIO empowerment type things. If you are a vendor, and your customer gets pissed at you and says you aren't being a good vendor, and you said you would be, it gives them an angle to push. A slow, bureaucratic one, but a way to lead vendors, through reward, to do the right thing. Kyle Lussier AutoNOC LLC
