What I am describing is what I have seen practice by MANY working groups
across many areas.
The working groups clearly have the rights to do what is described.
While it is true that replacing an author can be difficult, I have seen
it done many times. It shouldn't need to be done as often as it is.
I would personally prefer to avoid codifying the IETF practice of WG
adoption and renaming into rigid rules. They tend to cause as many
problems as they solve.
It is true that not all WGs adopt documents, and that not all documents
get their name changed. There was, for example, one SFC document that
was sufficiently simple that when the WG adopted it the chairs did not
ask for a name change. And then shortly thereafter went to WG last call
on the document. The lack of name change actually confused quite a
number of people.
Yours,
Joel
On 4/27/2021 7:43 PM, Michael StJohns wrote:
On 4/27/2021 7:12 PM, Joel M. Halpern wrote:
Once the WG adopts the document, the WG owns it, and the document pen
holder (original author or otherwise) is expected to work according to
the direciton of the WG.
Hi Joel -
I'm lacking a reference for that specific claim in the various documents
that describe the process of getting a document published as an RFC.
Could you provide one please? E.g. where does it say that the WG owns
it? For that matter, where does it say that a WG needs to formally
adopt a document to work on it?
I would say instead that the WG may - when faced with a recalcitrant
author/editor a) replace them, b) decline to advance the document. In
my experience (a) has been difficult to achieve simply because you may
not be able to find anyone else who cares enough to do the grunt work of
taking the slings and arrows of the WG and turning it into a publishable
document. So the person who holds the pen, also tends to have a bit
more say over the content of the document - that's just the reality of
things.
Later, Mike
