[AFS3-std] Re: IBM will not re-license OpenAFS .xg files

[Andrew Deason]

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:04:10 -0700
Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> wrote:

> This issue has never been the serious blocker for standards work
> around AFS.  That blocker has always been the same thing that blocks
> most things about AFS: simple lack of time among the people who are
> currently able to do the work.

"Not enough time/resources" isn't really a reason; not on its own. The
people able to do this work have plenty of time, but they just choose to
spend it doing other things. The blocker "reason" then, it why they do
that. For at least me, and the impression I've gotten when talking to
others, there are a few reasons. One is:

> Standards work is both difficult and time-consuming.

...so I/we just avoid doing it, because it isn't fun. (When there are so
many tasks to be done of unspecified priority, it is very easy to avoid
the "not fun" ones.)

Another is a lack of faith that anybody else even remotely cares about
what is being done, and a sense of general confusion about the state of
things. This is probably especially true for those of us that do not
have experience with working with protocol standardization, since we
have no idea what a properly working process even looks like. A
document/task will go a year without any noticeable movement... and
nothing happens.

That doesn't mean the IETF repository is required, but it really seems
like some other process or organization would've really been helpful.

-- 
Andrew Deason
adeason@sinenomine.net