John,
On 2007-02-08 00:02, John C Klensin wrote:
Hi.
I will get to substance in a separate note, and hope others will
also. In the interim, two procedural remarks...
(1) This document and draft-klensin-rfc-independent-05.txt
describe two pieces of the "how a document that does not
originate in a WG may be reviewed and published" space. Each
contains some text that suggests that some documents are better
handled via the other path. The IAB has made a request for input
on the "independent" document and now we have a Last Call on
this one.
As editor of the "rfc-independent" document, I am awaiting
instructions from the IAB as to what, if anything, to do next,
but suspect that the recommendation below would be better
applied to -06 rather than -05 of that document.
I strongly encourage members of the community to review the two
documents side by side to ensure that everyone is satisfied that
they are consistent and that any questions about the overall
non-WG submission space is adequately covered by one or the
other of them.
Exactly right. These documents (and draft-iab-rfc-editor) need
to interlock and that is why they are open for review at the same
time.
I also ask, and hope others will join me in asking, that the
IESG and IAB take explicit responsibility for coordinating and
ensuring consistency between these two documents (and, if
necessary, with draft-iab-rfc-editor). If they are not
consistent enough that actions based on them are predictable, I
fear we can look forward to some difficulties. It might even be
useful for the two groups to coordinate titles sufficiently that
someone looking for information will easily understand that the
two describe somewhat parallel paths and ways in which those
paths may or may not be alternatives to each other.
That is the intention; and we can indeed look at the titles
in that light.
(2) This document is not the product of a working group or of
extended open discussion in the community. Version -00 was
posted around the time of the San Diego meeting and received
very little public discussion. The current version was posted
at the beginning of this month; there has been little discussion
of it either (at least on public lists -- as the
Acknowledgements suggest, I've had some input into it via
private discussions). The document does not even indicate a
mailing list on which it can be discussed. One presumes that
comments could have been sent to the IESG by those who happened
to read the I-Ds, but that is a one-way communications path.
Well, the Last Call message suggested this list. And with one rather
small difference, the draft only attempts to describe current practice.
[The difference is that it calls for a publication request to be sent
to a single AD and not to the IESG as a whole.]
If the IESG intends this document to merely represent the
particular procedures they intend to follow within the range of
alternatives over which they believe they have discretion, then
it should probably be published as an ION, not an Informational
RFC.
We discussed this and reached the opposite conclusion, mainly
because of the point you raise above: consistency with two
other documents that will definitely be RFCs. But it was a
close decision.
If they intend it to be definitive information for the
community, especially information that they expect to reference
as to why something is or is not possible or whether procedures
are being followed, a two-week Last Call is, IMO, inappropriate
and inconsistent with the spirit of the provisions in RFC 2026.
If we believed it modified or did violence to 2026, it would need to
be a BCP itself with a whole other style of review. But since its
intent is much milder, a normal LC seemed enough.
Brian
_______________________________________________
Ietf@xxxxxxxx
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf