[dcc2] Protocol vs standards

[Phoenix Fyrestar]

It has occurred to me that many of us (mainly myself or because of my
comments) have been spending much time discussing the types of standards
that should/could be set (what type of encryption, compression etc to use),
do you think we could be better served by simple concerning ourselves with
the actual protocol proper for now, and then either as a sub-section of the
protocol or as a separate group, set standards.

I guess I'm asking, have I been off the topic of the actual protocol by
discussing the possible way we should standardize the implimentation of the
protocol, or is this part of the process as a whole?

I've never worked on anything like this before, so sorry if this is a really
dumb question, but it seems to me like perhaps we could make a bit more
progress by making an extensible and abstract protocol and then setting
standards after the fact, is this the case?