In Defense Of Cooperation

[Paul E. Jones]

In Defense Of CooperationTom,

In reflection, I believe I chose a very poor word to describe the H.248/MEGACO effort.  I did not at all intend to discredit you or the others who have worked so hard on this project from either the ITU or the IETF side.

Perhaps "tribulation" might have been the proper word.  I chose the word fiasco, because there just seemed to be so much disagreement over so many (what I consider) petty issues.  Of course, there were many hours of debate over more important matters as well, but I suppose it was the bitter disagreements over petty issues from the very beginning and then, as you pointed out, the required written agreement at the end that stood out in my mind as I was drafting that response.

There is no doubt that this effort has been a very stressful on both sides and has had its share of problems.  In the end, though, I agree with you and the others who responded: it was a success.  The job that folks set out to do was accomplished.  It was a long, hard road, but it was definitely a road worth traveling.  In addition, I feel that you did a wonderful job helping to keep these two groups moving forward and on track.

In my original message that ultimately spawned this thread, I mentioned that I was in favor of continued IETF/ITU joint efforts.  I still believe that.  I certainly need to be more careful with my choice of words and I do apologize for this poor word choice.

Best Regards,
Paul

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tom-PT Taylor 
  To: ITU-SG16 at mailbag.cps.intel.com 
  Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2000 7:43 PM
  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 at nortelnetworks.com (internally, Tom-PT Taylor) 
  Phone and FAX: +1 613 736 0961 

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