Subject: Configuration Smog

From: Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 10:39:23 -0800

Despite the formidable opposition the Zeroconf Working Group faces, the 
problem we are seeking to solve remains supremely important. The 
unfortunate industry trend is that as technology products become more 
capable, they also become inexorably more complicated and hard to use. If 
we don't find a way to reverse this self-destructive trend, those of us 
who have an interest (financial or otherwise) in making products that the 
general public can actually use are going to have a disappointing future.

The hardest battle we're fighting here is not the technical debate about 
how to achieve our goal of reducing the configuration burden on 
end-users, but a semi-religious disagreement about whether that goal is 
even desirable.

The computer industry seems unable to add any new feature without also 
adding one or more configuration options to go with it, because they (we) 
don't have the guts to make the hard decisions, so we punt them to the 
end user, and force the end user to make the final decisions about how 
the product should work.

The end result is that the end users are dying the death of a thousand 
configuration options. This nightmare is the cumulative result of all of 
them taken together, but there's no one single thing alone that you can 
blame for the mess.

It's like car pollution in third-world countries. No one vehicle
alone is responsible, but together they make the air unbreathable.

Stuart Cheshire <[email-masked]>
 * Wizard Without Portfolio, Apple Computer, Inc.
 * Chairman, IETF Zeroconf
 * www.stuartcheshire.org

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 15:32:20 -0500

> end-users, but a semi-religious disagreement about whether that goal is
 
I think that's a gross miscatagorization, but it's one that might 
illuminate the real differences that exist here.

IMHO there is a optimum level of configuration, which is neither
"zero" nor "lots".  Ease of configuration needs to be balanced with
other considerations like security.  The right balance is different
for different devices and different users (depending on their needs,
their level of sophistication, and the threats they face), but the 
same products have to support a wide range of users' needs.  
So the optimum level of configurability for a product (or a standard)
requires more knobs than the optimum level of configurability for a user.

I don't think it's appropriate to dismiss the technical concerns of
those who see the larger picture as "semi-religious".  Particularly
when the group's charter (remember the charter?) specifically says

> In some cases other considerations may dominate ease of use. For example, 
> network security requires some configuration which may not be as easy as 
> the unacceptable alternative of 'no security.' 

Keith

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From: "John C. Welch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 17:23:51 -0500

> requires more knobs than the optimum level of configurability for a user.

If this requires more work of the user than plugging in a cable, and making
sure TCP/IP is turned on, then we've failed.

john

-- 
John C. Welch
Consultant III
Administrative Computing
(617) 253 - 1368 work
(508) 579 - 7380 cell
bynkii2          AIM

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From: "Philip Nye" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 12:44:22 -0000

> From: "Stuart Cheshire"
> ...

Lets not blame the third world for pollution - a staggering 25% of the
worlds CO2 is produced by the USA.

And yes the goal of minimising configuration is highly desirable.
Unfortunately the word "zero" in the name leads to an all or nothing
mentality rather than a drive to minimise configuration burdens right up the
scale.

Philip Nye