Re: In Defense Of Cooperation

Hi, Everyone:

Like Mike Buckley, Bob Callaghan has also made excellent points. Both have provided due credits to the people who worked hard to make it happen. In the end, the whole world has been benefited. The final credit belongs to all people of the two great standard organizations: ITU-T and IETF.

So far the IP Telephony is concerned, it appears that both ITU-T and IETF have to work cooperatively in many areas for the foreseeable future because they need each other for interworking among their standards. It is a need for the interest of the users of the whole world.

Keeping the great spirit, let us see how we can work better in the future. As per suggestion of Bob, we would request Tom to have a post analysis what we need to have for more successes like this overcoming the cultural clashes between the two great organizations for the benefit of the international community.

Best regards, Radhika R. Roy AT&T (732) 420 1580 rrroy@att.com

-----Original Message----- From: Callaghan, Robert [SMTP:Robert.Callaghan@ICN.SIEMENS.COM] Sent: Monday, February 28, 2000 3:21 PM To: ITU-SG16@MAILBAG.INTEL.COM Subject: Re: In Defense Of Cooperation

Tom,

I have to agree that the H.248/Megaco project, in the end, is a success. And much of the success is the process and cultural knowledge that was gained. Yes, at this point, everyone is suffering some pain. However, very little greatness is gained without pain.

The group culture and dynamic is very different between the ITU-T and the IETF. It is hard for anyone to gain trust in a partner, when you do not know or understand what the partner is doing. If you don't understand what a partner is doing, can you trust that you understand what he is thinking? (YES; but with time and effort!)

Again, I think that an important success of this work is that it succeeded. However, we need to understand, as much as possible, as to why and how it succeeded. This is why I asked you (Tom) to do a post project debriefing paper. It will help little if this only details corrections to errors. To be useful, it must detail the successes, including all the little successes. From this information it will be possible to determine how to do a cooperation project again. Without this information, most people will be afraid to try a cooperation project in the fear that it will just as painful as second time.

An important part of the success is the core group of people who participated in all the IETF and the ITU-T activities. I doubt this this will be typical of any future work. So the question will remain how to share work between the normal ITU-T process involving contributions at meetings and the IETF process involving, to a greater extent, work shared over a mailing list. Both processes are valid, but their dynamics are very different. (The two groups cannot even agree on a document format that can be shared between the two groups.)

There have been many intemperate statements made by too many people regarding IETF and ITU-T. This is not limited to the H.248/Megaco project. These statements will not help progress; but in many cases represent the fears of the individual groups. IETF and ITU-T originated in very different environments. The future shock is these environments are becoming one. Neither group has the totality of knowledge. Both groups have a valid pool of knowledge that adds to the whole and from which all can learn. But how to bring this sharing about? The H.248/Megaco project was a start. Let us find away to continue.

Robert Callaghan

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Robert Callaghan Siemens Information and Communication Networks Tel: +1.561.997.3756 Fax: +1.561.997.3403 Email: Robert.Callaghan@ICN.Siemens.com

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  -----Original Message-----
  From: Tom-PT Taylor [mailto:taylor@NORTELNETWORKS.COM]
  Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2000 7:43 PM
  To: ITU-SG16@mailbag.cps.intel.com
  Subject: In Defense Of Cooperation



  Paul Jones used the term "H.248/Megaco fiasco", and Dale Skran was

quite intemperate in his criticism of the joint effort when he spoke in Geneva. I was not in a position to raise much of a defense there, because it would have conflicted with Glen's positioning of the H.248 work as stable. Now that that issue is water under the bridge, I would like to suggest that it really has been quite a successful project. I don't think we should go at it in quite the same way in the future, but we should not come away totally discouraged about the prospects for IETF/ITU-T cooperation.

  Here are bases for my conclusion:

  We have been technically successful, and what we have created is

better than it would have been if created in either body separately. To be specific, we retained a great deal of the thinking and experience which went into MGCP, but escaped the limitations MGCP's connection model imposed on the use of different bearer types and multiple media.

  There is a perception that the IETF decision model is lacking

because so much had to be done at the ITU-T meetings. However, the grueling effort put in at the latter resulted partly because of fundamental conflict to which Q.13-14 has been unaccustomed (Monterey and much of Red Bank in particular) and partly because there was so much to cover. This may have given the impression that the IETF didn't do anything on their watch, but we did work through a lot of material. Moreover, both Q. 14/16 and Megaco made a host of decisions which have shaped the final protocol.

  I have pleaded guilty to a failure to complete IETF process in

timely fashion. There was a brief window of opportunity in early December when it seemed that the list was quieting down. If I had made Last Call at that point, the long list of issues which was contributed into the Geneva meeting would instead have been forced into the open at an early enough point that IETF process could still have been completed in time for the Geneva meeting. I consider this to be a tactical failure, in that real work was done in the intervening month and a half, and the protocol specification is the better for it.

  We have come to a point where SG 16 is thoroughly mistrustful of the

IETF as a partner, and has shown this distrust by negotiating a contract for further progress on H.248/Megaco down to the last detail. The pity is that I could see that SG 16 was overly anxious to do its part, from Santiago onwards. We were not really ready for determination at that point, and we were not ready for decision coming out of Red Bank. I can understand that SG 16 feels betrayed because the IETF was not finished in time, but the fact is that the job was bigger than the schedule allowed for.

  This is why, if I am ever involved in a project like this again, I

will insist that the IETF and ITU-T working together create an IETF Proposed Standard before determination ever happens. The opportunity for false expectations and artificially tight deadlines will thus never arise, and both sides will be the happier for it.

  Tom Taylor
  Advisor -- Emerging Carrier IP Standards
  E-mail: taylor@nortelnetworks.com (internally, Tom-PT Taylor)
  Phone and FAX: +1 613 736 0961