[linux-audio-dev] GMPI?

[John Lazzaro]

> Steve Harris <S.W.Harris at ecs.soton.ac.uk> writes:
>
> Standards processes that I've been exposed to generally mandate regular
> weekly meetings (teleconference and/or irc), with less frequent
> face-to-face meetings and most business is sorted out during the meetings.
> Email is only used for tying up loose ends and exchanging text, minuites
> etc.

The IETF is a successful counter-example -- email is the only way
any decision can be made, meetings are optional, and no decision
made at any meeting is binding until consensus occurs on the mailing
list to confirm it.

I'm hesitant to comment further about GMPI and its chances for 
success or failure, because I've been too busy trying to finish
RTP MIDI to keep a close eye on it.  My only worry stems from a
common IETF belief -- that the standards process is a great way
to polish and reach consensus on a substantially complete design,
but using the standards process as the vehicle to do the design
is a much harder road to hoe.  A good example of this is 801.11,
which was an incredibly long and painful experience because many
parties brought bits and pieces of wireless Ethernet to the IEEE
table.  Only the inherent goodness of the core idea (packet radio)
kept everyone at the table to eventually produce a standard that
could be interoperably deployed (801.11b, aka Wi-Fi, and its
lettered follow-ons). 

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John Lazzaro -- Research Specialist -- CS Division -- EECS -- UC Berkeley
lazzaro [at] cs [dot] berkeley [dot] edu     www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro
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