There has been some recent discussion on the mailing list
regarding the Job MIB and whether on not it should be on
a standards track or not.
The IETF has not been completely clear on its criteria for
establishing working groups to develop protocols to go on the
standards track. However, in many information conversations
with Area Directors and others, Chris and I have learned that
the primary concern is overall operation of the Internet. The
IETF has seen a significant rise in the number of protocols
and MIBs they have been requested to oversee. In order to
reduce the workload the Area Directors had to be selective
in where they sent their time and have chosen to only focus on
items that may impact the overall operation of the Internet.
The reason the IETF took an interest in the Internet Printing
Protocol is that they saw it having wide ranging implications
for Internet operation. If the IPP protocol was badly specified
and resulted in large consumption of bandwidth, it becomes a
cause for concern for the IETF. These are the types of projects
and working groups they want to charter and oversee--those that
will have a big impact on the overall Internet. In the case of
the Job MIB, the IETF sees this largely as workgroup or LAN-specific
kind of operation. The IETF does not want to invest standards time
and scrutiny on these projects, as these projects do not have the
impact on overall Internet operations that other protocols do.
The Area Directors have seen other MIBs be tremendous commercial
successes without being on the standards track. Therefore, we do
not think we will be successful in introducing the Job MIB on a
standards track.
Lloyd
------------------------------------------------------------
Lloyd Young Lexmark International, Inc.
Senior Program Manager Dept. C08L/Bldg. 035-3
Strategic Alliances 740 New Circle Road NW
e-mail: lpyoung at lexmark.com Lexington, KY 40550
Phone: (606) 232-5150 Fax: (606) 232-6740