--On Tuesday, 12 June, 2007 09:52 -0700 Bernard Aboba
<bernard_aboba@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>...
> For example, by restricting the function of an initial BOF to
> a determination of interest and a decision to form/not form a
> study group, the opportunities for unfairness and bias can be
> reduced. Once the study group had produced a charter and
> documentation of the formation criteria, the review of these
> documents could proceed with more information than is
> typically available as the result of a (potentially delayed)
> 2nd BOF. Also, the review could utilize existing procedures
> for ensuring transparency and accountability, such as an open
> review process and documentation of DISCUSS comments.
Bernard,
Some specific observations on shifting more toward an IEEE
model...
(1) Unless things have changed since I was last paying careful
attention, the process you describe is used to adding a new
project to an existing technical committee. The process for
creating a new technical committee is somewhat more elaborate.
The IETF has no layer between the steering group (IESG, TSC (?))
and the WGs who actually do the technical work. We also usually
try to charter WGs on a short-term, project basis rather than
assigning new projects to existing WGs. Because of those
differences, we need to be careful about analogies unless we are
willing to rethink process models in much more fundamental ways
than tweaking the BOF process.
(2) I don't have statistics, but my impression is that most
technical standards work in the IEEE these days (not just in
802, but more broadly) starts with a proposal to standardize a
specific industry technology. Those proposals are debated and
refined, but the assumption is that little fundamental
engineering or design work is done in the standardization
process. We behave as if the IETF is still doing engineering
design work. Maybe it is time to drop that as an inefficient
and ineffective fantasy, but, again, considering that involves
much broader issues than reforming the BOF process.
(3) Many of us are concerned about the length of time it takes
to move a well-thought-out idea that has significant support
forward from initial proposal to a functioning standards
development effort. Perhaps we should be concentrating as much
on that question as on the one of how we cut bad, or
inadequately supported, ideas off as cleanly as possible.
Adding a study group creation process and a study group process
to the existing opportunities for delay would not contribute to
speeding things up. Indeed, it would do much the contrary.
(4) I, and others, have said this before, but my belief is that
the single most effective change that could be made to the BOF
process would be for the IESG to stop taking its ability to
project the future so seriously. As you and others have
commented, the track record on that isn't good anyway. Suppose,
instead, we were to permit WGs to be set up on a provisional
basis, with intense review after some reasonable period of time
and cancellation if they were not performing adequately and
producing results the community seemed to care about. This
would combine some of the advantages of IEEE-like study groups
with a streamlined process that focused on the one true measure
of whether a WG could produce useful work: starting it up and
seeing if it produced useful work.
Since decisions as to whether to charter a WG are somewhat
subjective and the IESG has broad discretion, this is a change
the IESG could institute --experimentally or permanently-- on
its own initiative without our spending energy on changing the
processes. Its success would, however, depend on a change of
attitude in the community: today, so much effort goes into the
charter process because it has become almost impossible, in
practice, to kill off a non-performing WG or to put a tight
leach on one that is wandering in the weeds. ADs who try to do
so do not win popularity contests, to put it mildly. If the
IESG saw clear and broad community support for chartering WGs
that were questionable but plausible and then tuning charters or
killing non-performing WGs if things didn't work out as
originally conceived, I believe we could get a great deal of the
nonsense, arbitrariness, and delays out of the early parts of
the process.
But I don't think that support is there, at least yet. Without
it, changes in forms or procedures probably do not produce
better results and, if delay is considered an important cost,
might produce worse ones.
regards,
john
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