Subject: Re: [saag] Important open-source activities...

From: Peter Gutmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 23:03:58 +0000

Watson Ladd <[email-masked]> writes:

>The fact that there are now two kinds of OS in the world: *nix and Windows.

And that's the exact attitude from standards committees that makes them a
major pain for me.  There are way, way more OSes than Windows and Unix (eCos,
AMX, FreeRTOS, MQX, VxWorks, uITRON, RTEMS, uC/OS, VDK, XMK, and others),
almost all of which are wilfully ignored by standards authors (at best it's a
"well Moores law will make them all irrelevant anyway so we don't need to
bother with them").  I'm thinking in particular of HTTP 2.0 and TLS 2.0
(a.k.a. "TLS 1.3"), which are designed for Google's big iron (and equivalents)
on one side and desktop PCs/laptops/tablets/smart phones on the other, and
that's all, because nothing else exists.

So one thing that standards committees could do is recognise that there are
vast numbers of embedded systems out there that are locked out of the
standards process by designers for whom they don't exist.  In fact this is
exactly why we need standards, to accommodate everything out there, not just
one particular content-delivery process.

Peter.

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From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:50:02 -0600

> that's all, because nothing else exists.

OK, I'll bite.  What are we doing badly relative to any of the OSes that
you list?  Be specific.

(I wouldn't be too surprised if there are problems with HTTP/2.0 and TLS
1.3 for such OSes, but I want to hear what they might be, particularly
for TLS 1.3.)

> one particular content-delivery process.

*This* SDO lets anyone show up and speak up.  Other SDOs not so much.

Needless to say, volunteers are not required to represent those others
who don't show up.

Another way to say what you're saying would be: eagerly invite non-usual
suspects to participate.  Which, I think, is something the IETF
perenially hears, and, perenially tries to do (since more participants
generally means more meeting attendees, which means making it easier to
fund IETF activities).  Feel free to help.

Nico
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