On 6/28/23 23:40, Christian Huitema wrote:
Keith, you may remember that one of the big gripes against the old IAB
is that it sometimes acted as "technical dictator", and would try
impose specific technical decisions against the will of the working
group, or of the IETF in general. Do you want a repeat? Having a
managing body push back against a "strong consensus" would probably
not end well.
I admit that such decisions can be unpopular, that it's better if such
feedback comes from the community than from an AD, and that it's better
for ADs to provide such feedback early than at Last Call time. Nobody
likes late surprises, and by that time it's especially difficult for a
tired WG to come up with good fixes to problems. But I also maintain
that WG consensus alone is not sufficient to meet the well-established
quality for Proposed Standard, and all of my IETF experience (including
time on IESG) experience reinforces that.
Nobody said it was easy being on IESG. But I think ADs should do their
jobs, and part of their jobs is technical review. Far too often a WG
does not represent a wide enough perspective.
Keith
p.s. BTW, I also think it's wrong to change an AD's DISCUSS vote even if
there are enough non-DISCUSS votes for the document to pass. Let the
document be published if that's what the rules say, but changing the
votes is simply dishonest and encourages cover-up of technical flaws.
