(addendum)
Sam,
Additional points:
> See above. I just looked at section 2.6 of RFC 3774 and it does not seem
> to discuss the sorts of problems that lead to my comment. If I'm missing
> something please point me at it.
I went back and reviewed that text. It cites exactly the point I am raising
here:
2.6.3. Procedural Blockages
The current procedural rules combined with the management and quality
roles of the ADs can lead to situations where WGs or document authors
believe that one or two ADs are deliberately blocking the progress of
a WG document without good reason or public justification.
That seems pretty clear to me.
You might also want to review the I-D draft-huston-ietf-pact-00, from 2002.
I-D:
<http://www.watersprings.org/pub/id/draft-huston-ietf-pact-00.txt>
presentation:
<http://www.potaroo.net/presentations/2002-10-30-ietf-pact.ppt>
It was produced by a group of experienced IETF participants who thought the
problems were serious enough and long-standing enough to warrant real change.
Unfortunately, the reaction from some of IETF management could only be called
paranoid ("What do you REALLY want?") So, of course, the proposal got
derailed.
For another perspective on fixing these sorts of issues, take a look at:
<http://www.watersprings.org/pub/id/draft-bradner-ietf-proc-ideas-00.txt>
I cite it to show that, again, these concerns are not just from one or two
troublemakers.
As with a diverse working group, purely undirected discussion generally has
the effect of defeating proposals, since there are always objections to any
interesting idea. Countering this requires disciplined management of the
discussion, with the clear and strong goal of making real progress.
Changes involving the IESG will only take place when the IESG takes a
constructive role in making this happen. So far, the only change that it has
encouraged has been to make working group chairs handle more of the
administrative load. While that change is a good one, it has nothing to do
with the kinds of authority changes that need to take place.
It is certainly true that working groups sometimes produce bad
specifications. It is therefore essential that the late-stage quality
assurance process remain.
However the process is sometimes used for nit-picking, second-guessing, and
personal preference.
Since those using the process that way have a veto, this really is a
problem.
d/
---
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
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dcrocker a t ...
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