Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!RICEVM1!SCHAFER
From: SCHAFER@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU (Richard A. Schafer)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.policy-l
Subject: Re: Specs vs. Standards
Message-ID: <900208.133741.CST.SCHAFER@RICEVM1.RICE.EDU>
Date: 8 Feb 90 23:27:53 GMT
Sender: Discussion about BITNET policies <POLICY-L@BITNIC>
Reply-To: Discussion about BITNET policies <POLICY-L@BITNIC>
Organization: Networking and Computing Systems, Rice University
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In-Reply-To:  Message of Mon, 5 Feb 90 18:28:01 EST from <ROBINSON@BITNIC>

On Mon, 5 Feb 90 18:28:01 EST Andrew T. Robinson said:
>One of the best ways I've seen to accomplish this is to poll people who ARE
>ignorant of the innards of the various protocols and established tools and
>ask what they expect from the network.  The days of a highly technical group
>of people dictating how software development should proceed are coming to
>an end.  If BITNET is going to suceed we have to manage this network to the
>benefit of the end user who doesn't know or care about NJE, TCP/IP, RFC822,
>or x.400.  Those same users will take their business elsewhere if we can't
>extract ourselves from the same mire.
Yes, but.

I agree that software development needs to have the user who doesn't care
about the technical underpinnings ("I'm a doctor, not a computer scientist"),
but I remain unconvinced that BITNET doesn't need some sort of technical
group to help guide the development of the network services.

I have long felt that there was a distinct need for some sort of technical
advisory/steering committee (for lack of a better name) to give some
guidance to the board.  BITNIC has claimed (rightly) for years that
they were both incapable of doing this and that it wasn't their job as
defined by the board to do this.  Note carefully: I'm *not* making
comments about the present staff's abilities.  Even if the BITNIC staff
*is* capable of doing technical direction for the network, I remain
unconvinced that such a dependence on the central staff *without*
guidance from the technical resources that exist around the network
would be a mistake.  As someone (David Lippke?) recently said, part
of what makes BITNET what it is is support from volunteers (both
as individuals and as an institution) for the good of the network of
the whole, without always worrying about whether their particular
environment was going to benefit the most from their participation.

The success of the network so far in fact validates Andy's statement
about the end user "who doesn't know or care about NJE, TCP/IP, RFC822,
or x.400."  In fact, there are an awful lot of users of BITNET today that
fit that description, and those users have been guided by the technical
volunteers who have written software (which they use themselves, always
a good clue to how good something is) which provides an environment which,
while not perfect, has helped an awful lot of unknowledgeable users
do an awful lot of good networking.

Our problem now is how to keep the development of this BITNET environment
going, now that the network has gotten so big that I doubt anyone has
a real conception of the topology any longer.  One of the things that
we're going to have to provide is better direction from the center
without quenching the development of interesting things from the fringes,
and I think that calls for more technical direction than a board member
technical committee can hope to accomplish.

Richard