Surprises

Well, the plugfest is long over -- but not for the R&D groups, who'll be working to resolve issues found during the plugfest. Being hampered by the lack of a working laptop at least gave me time to ask around about surprises others encountered during the plugfest and sadly, there were a number.

But then again, not all the devices present have been tested and bear the BTL Mark. I know some of things found, such as a router that apparently does not respond to a Who-Is-Router-To-Network message (but which routes nonetheless, leading to different results from workstations with different network discovery procedures), would have been discovered in BTL testing.

Another surprising response I saw in a previous plugfest (but there was reason for the form of the response) was handled correctly by a client workstation, even though from network traffic it looked like it wasn't. (There was more --much more-- but some items might identify the manufacturer, which is against plugfest privacy rules.)

Until everybody's devices bear the BTL Mark, and maybe even then, plugfests are going to remain important.

And even if we hadn't found anything at all with our devices, we found issues with other (untested) implementations it's comforting to know that we did make it more likely that other devices will work with ours when installed in the field -- fewer unwelcome surprises ahead.

(Looking forward to the BIG-EU plugfest in Saarbrücken, Germany, in May. What will I find there?)