There is perhaps one more aspect to "Can somebody explain ..." that
is worth considering. In some cases, the AD simply does not have the
expertise or simply has incorrect/wrong understanding. In that case,
the burden is on the authors to help the AD understand the context of
the work, provide references to reading material and such. Until the
AD understands at his/her own pace, the work seems to languish (sure
the authors do delay responses etc., but let us work on one problem
at a time) in the IESG review stage.
There is of course a simple solution to the problem. The ADs should
review drafts at the IETF LC stage and should only have time to
understand the context of the work during that process. They might
also involve other experts in the area to review the I-Ds that they
don't quite understand. Futhermore, there shouldn't be two sets of
wider review processes beyond the WG stage: an "open" and a "closed"
process as is the case currently.
The General area and the SEC area have review teams now which follow
the work starting at the IETF LC stage. Some of it (probably
unintentionally) is closed. We can figure out how to open all of
that. Perhaps all area directors should consider starting review
process starting at the IETF LC process. That overlap and some sense
of a deadline on IESG reviews might help reduce the delays in the
processes. It should also result in invalidating the use of DISCUSS
to get explanations or more bluntly using DISCUSS to say "teach me."
I will close with saying that sometimes people I know ask "how long
does it take from concept to RFC status?" More often than not, the
answer is we don't quite know. They simply conclude that it takes
several years and think of tweaking some existing provisions, e.g.,
use Vendor extensions etc., before going through the pain of making
extensions to protocols truly interoperable. Fact is, in many cases,
RFC publication is quite fast. In other cases, it does take a long
time. It is better to introduce some level of predictability into
IETF processes.
thanks,
Lakshminath
At 09:39 AM 12/30/2006, Lisa Dusseault wrote:
On Dec 29, 2006, at 8:44 AM, Dave Crocker wrote:
Meta-point:
Something quite basic that is missing from the draft on
Discuss Criteria is a requirement that any Discuss not only
explain its precise normative basis, but that it give a clear
statement of what actions must be taken to clear the Discuss.
That's great when it's possible and desirable, but it's sometimes
impossible, and sometimes undesirable. How about a bit more nuanced
view: any DISCUSS position should move towards being actionable as
all the parties come to understand each other and the alternative
approaches, rather than simply trash the DISCUSS because it's not
actionable yet.
It's impossible for an AD to give a clear statement of what actions
to take to clear a DISCUSS when the issue begins as a question. It
can sometimes take a few weeks for an issue like "Can somebody
explain to me whether this draft really suffers from such-and-such a
problem, or did I miss something which would make it immune to that
problem?" to turn from a beginning exploratory DISCUSS into an
accurate problem description (if there still is one), and from there
into a clear statement of actions to take.
It's undesirable for an AD to give a clear statement of what actions
to take to clear a DISCUSS when there are many possible approaches
and the AD doesn't know enough about previous discussions rejecting
some of them. It unnecessarily hardens everybody's positions if an
AD blithely suggests "To clear my issues, this document should be
made Experimental instead of Proposed Standard" when the WG can't
abide that particular solution and there may be half a dozen other
solutions. Proposing a solution too early (before an AD understands
the problem and the local constraints) is a classic engineering
mistake. I hope you'll forgive us when we do suggest the wrong
solution now and then under pressure to make DISCUSSes actionable.
I've been document shepherd on WG documents where other ADs placed a
DISCUSS and described their issue in terms of the problem. Once we
came to a certain amount of agreement on the problem, I've worked
with WG chairs and authors to figure out the WG's preferred
solution. We checked with the DISCUSSing ADs along the way to see
if our alternatives would actually satisfy their issues, and those
ADs have been responsive and open-minded in considering various
possible solutions. I've done this both as WG chair (pre-AD) and as
shepherding AD. Sometimes it takes a bit more work to find the best
solution rather than the first one.
Lisa
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