A few observations on the Portland 'bakeoff'.
1. It was intended as a pre-bakeoff, a chance to see what didn't
work prior to a public airing. I think we all had a chance to find out
at least something that didn't work, and presumably are hustling to
fix it.
2. It was a intended as a co-operative no-fault venture. That is,
since this was a technically risky airing of perhaps not quite done
products among competitors, cooperation required that each participant
use the opportunity to discover problems in their product rather than
be overly concerned with problems in competitor's products. Although
some participants were more open than others, I was heartened by the
large degree of real cooperation among engineers. On the other hand,
there was a certain understandable reservation about public airing of
problems both about one's own product and about other companies'
products.
3. So, as a prebakeoff, I maintain the Portland activity appeared
to accomplish what it was intended to do. With respect to the bakeoff,
that has yet to occur. The marketing considerations to not have this
at interop in favor of some other venue notwithstanding, the success
or failure of the Portland activity can only be evaluated with respect
to the extent that it assisted in making the actual bakeoff a valid
public demonstration of interoperability. The corollary to this is
that the actual public bakeoff, with things fixed, must occur soon or
perhaps we are all wasting our time.
Bill Wagner DPI