Comment by jameshart
12 years ago
RFCs don't amount to much without adoption. The RFC database is full of protocols with grand designs and seemingly broad applicability. Look at the "Extensible Provisioning Protocol", EPP - http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5730 - a protocol "for the provisioning and management of objects stored in a shared central repository." - it reads as a marvelously generic protocol for client-managed key-value data storage - maybe it's suited for caching systems, or cloud BLOB storage, or as an abstraction of dropbox... but in reality it's just the protocol used by internet domain registrars to manage domain name registrations on a registry server - the nichiest of niche applications, yet the subject of a dozen RFCs. It's not going to be picked up and supported by Hadoop or Dropbox or anybody else who needs client managed obect storage, they're going to stick to HTTP REST.
This CBOR format is being proposed by the VPN Consortium - presumably there's some specific VPN interoperability application they have in mind for this. In the meantime, everybody else will continue to use compressed JSON, or protocol buffers, or whatever other standards have good library support and interoperability and - crucially - adoption in their domain.
I agree with all the points you've made, and I haven't read this RFC beyond a quick skim, but consider:
-a lot of the time, a dearth of implementations of a new Thing is not because the new Thing is bad, but simply because people are change-averse and lazy, even in the face of an objectively better Thing, and
-I still consider this a quality submission; even if CBOR doesn't get adopted it's still neat to read. It's like watching one's government draft new legislation, except more relevant.