In Defense Of Cooperation

[Tom-PT Taylor]

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 at nortelnetworks.com (internally, Tom-PT Taylor)
Phone and FAX: +1 613 736 0961

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