"a WG that needs a document published"
This choice of words implies that you're thinking of a WG as
an autonomous body with its own objectives.
It implies that WG members are humans with a limited amount of time,
so the goal quickly becomes "clear the DISCUSS", not "make the
Internet work better".
The IETF's entire reason for existence is to make the Internet work
better. If WG participants aren't here for that reason, they don't
belong in IETF. IMHO.
However I do think that in practice there is often a disconnect along
these lines. Some WG participants may not see their goal as making the
Internet work better, but rather to get some new technology standardized
whether it works well or not, so that planned product ship dates will
not slip. There is a tussle between very-short-term economic interests
and the long-term investment that technology buyers and users make in a
standard, and we might do well to recognize that tussle and tweak our
procedures accordingly. But the best way I know to do get better
standards out sooner is to actually employ the disciplines of
engineering when developing protocols - which we rarely do.
A DISCUSS on an issue that the WG has considered, in the absence of
new information, does not help the Internet work better.
While it might be true in specific cases, that's not true as a
generalization. The judgment of WG participants as to what is best for
the Internet might be colored by the narrow focus of the WG, whereas
people with other perspectives (like participants in other WGs, or
people with legitimate interests other than that of the WG), or broader
perspectives (like those on IESG) might have a different opinion of the
merit's of a WG's output. If that turns out to be the case, the WG's
work may not have earned rough consensus of the IETF and may therefore
need further revision - or if the WG has erred too badly, a completely
different approach.
> Let's face
> it--DISCUSS is a fairly Orwellian euphemism.
Not if you accept that IETF WGs should operate to meet
the IETF's mission. But it does require that both the AD issuing
the DISCUSS, and the protagonists of the document, are willing
to actually discuss.
Again, in the situation above, slapping a DISCUSS on a document is not
the start of a conversation. It's a directive.
In my experience it's far too often taken as a directive, but that's not
necessarily the fault of the AD who voted DISCUSS.
I generally seems that when a WG views IESG and the rest of IETF as
collaborators toward the general goal of making the Internet work
better, things go fairly smoothly. OTOH, when a WG views IESG and the
rest of IETF as potential adversaries, and external input as something
to be discouraged or ignored, we tend to get train wrecks.
Keith
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