Re: WG Review: Domain Keys Identified Mail (dkim)

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Sam,

    Dave> If you have specific questions that you believe the wg needs
    Dave> to attend to, then they should have been stated during the
    Dave> very oppe, very lengthy (and repeated) charter development
Dave> process. Dave, there are two ways of reading this and if people read it
incorrectly they might come across with the impression that you were
attempting to short circuit community review.

I can't imagine how my noting that there have been two, extended rounds of open discussion and revision -- including two IETF BOFs -- could be taken as an attempting to short-circuit community review.

What I CAN imagine is that pursuing such a point will take us all that much farther away from chartering this group. Please remember that this is a group that has been jumping through IETF start-up hoops for 5 months already.

(By the way, I lied. I can imagine all sorts of ways people can choose to misinterpret someone's statements, no matter what the person has actually said.)


The first way of
reading this is that it would be very nice if people with specific
concerns brought them up in the charter discussion.  That's certainly
true.  We don't want this WG review to be drawn out and we want to
move forward with WG creation.  I agree strongly with that reading.

Me too.


The second is that by failing to do so, people have given up their
ability to bring forward these concerns or would not be constructive
by doing so.

But Sam, that is ultimately the way the IETF does get work done:

People who do not participate during an extended, open and productive process must not be allowed to come in afterwards and insist things be done differently.

(Please note that I already acknowledged that "it won't work" is always relevant, but that's not what we are dealing with here.)


  While it is possible to be non-constructive at any stage
of the process, this is the first time that DKIM has formally been
before the community for review.

No, Sam.  That is not correct.

DKIM has been before the IETF community for 5 months.

This is a last call event, not a first call.  It is a chartering last call.

And let me anticipate those who view it differently: If the IETF has any hope of being productive in the long term, it needs to find a way to stop re-visiting territory that has already been worked. What we have now is a process that requires constantly re-arguing topics. There is really no way to make anything that looks like timely progress, if even one person feels like arguing against it at any point in the process.


We had a BOF, but that was not
attended by the entire community; this WG review is the formal point
in our process where the community can bring up concerns with the
charter.

1. That's not the issue here, since Ted has participated in earlier discussions. He didn't like the rough consensus that was reached, so he's raising his concerns yet-again.

2. The concerns raised here, so far, have nothing to do with the technical or functional adequacy of the proposed work.

3. Perhaps you have heard a real "concern" expressed. I've missed it, but would love to hear someone else characterize it.

So far, the view seems to be that we are expected to a) entirely ignore and repeat previous work, and/or b) all the work of educating people who are not willing to review the public discussion archive -- particularly irksome when they themselves contributed to it, and/or c) enter into a standards process that insists on complete instability for those who have already invested 1-2 years creating the technology and services on which this effort is to be based.

And, yes, I believe that the situation is exactly that extreme, which is why I am taking such a harsh tone.

When someone bothers to do their homework and to raise a new question about the actual technical work, or its utility, that has not already received extended discussion, then they will not be wasting everyone's time.

(Variant: "I don't know if this has been discussed before, but what about...?" presumably is a question that will be satisfied by pointing to the relevant place in the online archive.)


At this stage, it is appropriate to bring up concerns or to reiterate
that a concern previously brought forward has not been addressed.

Except that Ted's concerns HAVE been addressed, Sam.


I realize you know all this.  I've been a bit more verbose than is
strictly necessary in the hopes of letting everyone know that we do
value their constructive input but we do require they keep that input
constructive.

Sam, from what I've seen, you are pretty consistent about trying to find a productive path. I often do not agree with your assessment of what that path should be, but that's ok, because it seems pretty clear that you actually care about finding answers (or at least compromises) rather than just lobbying for your pet preferences.

In the IETF, that kind of participation is a breath of fresh air.

d/

--

 Dave Crocker
 Brandenburg InternetWorking
 +1.408.246.8253
 dcrocker  a t ...
 WE'VE MOVED to:  www.bbiw.net

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