Re: draft-housley-iesg-rfc3932bis and the optional/mandatory nature of IESG notes

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Hi Richard,
At 20:31 02-09-2009, Richard Barnes wrote:
Stated at more length:

What is clearly going on here is that our branding is out of sync with the expectations of our customers. Whatever their historical meaning, RFCs are now interpreted by the broad community as documents that have the been reviewed and approved, to a greater or lesser degree, by the Internet community. I think we all agree that documents that go through the IETF or the IAB can more or less legitimately claim that imprimatur.

Some people interpret RFCs as Internet Standards even though the document contains "It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind." on the first page. One of the differences between the IETF Stream and the Independent Stream is that the former is reviewed by the IETF Community. The IETF Community is small part of the Internet community. This discussion is about a specific type of IESG Note where the IESG is supposed to only check for conflicts between the work of the IETF and the documents submitted. That sounds fairly simple. This discussion highlights there may be divergent views even for simple questions.

Independent submissions clearly cannot. Given that, it's not clear to me why the independent stream exists at all, other than for historical reasons.

The Independent Stream offers you a path to publish your document if the IESG does not find it suitable for publication. If you are using that path to bypass an IETF Working Group, the IESG Note under discussion comes into play.

Some people find the IETF path too expensive as it seems that you have to be an insider to get your document published.

The important point here is that you are offering a workable alternative to people to publish their work even though the IETF does not agree with the contents of the document, i.e. diverse views are not suppressed. It's more than a check and balance. Having this stream also allows the IETF to assess the effectiveness of its processes and document quality. In other words, if it is faster to publish through the Independent Stream and the output of that stream is better, the IETF can find out whether there is a problem with its stream.

Given that the abolition of the independent stream doesn't seem to be an option at this point, the next best thing to do is to require that independent-stream RFCs alert the reader to two things:
1. That this is not a document that has received IETF or IAB review, and
2. If the Internet community has any serious concerns, what they are

Clearly the first point is an issue for Headers and Boilerplates. The second point is represented in the current process by IESG notes; if the Internet community has concerns about a document, they can be included in the document as an IESG note. Given that the IESG is selected through a community process, I'm comfortable with this delegation, though requiring IETF consensus would clearly add some assurance.

The second point is not represented in the current process by the IESG Note under discussion. That note does not mean that the Internet community has concerns. It means that it is the opinion of the IESG that the document fulfills one of the five conditions in Section 3.

The other implication of the above paragraph is that the *absence* of an IESG note indicates to the reader that the community has no serious concerns, which means that enabling the ISE to reject IESG notes effectively enables the ISE to speak on behalf of the community. Given the choice, I would prefer the IESG to speak for me than the ISE.

The ISE is not speaking on behalf of the IETF Community.

I don't know whether you would agree to me as to whether the RFC Editor has been able to ensure the consistency of the RFC Series over the years. I encourage you to read some of the notes from Bob Braden and the RFC Editor team about the RFC Editor. Some of them may be historical in nature but they also spell out a constant line of thinking. The decisions taken are not done lightly and they are still relevant after all these years. Consistency also means that it is highly unlikely the RFC Editor will drop an IESG Note based on a whim.

At 14:23 02-09-2009, Russ Housley wrote:
Please, let's try to answer this one question on this thread: When the IESG performs review of an Independent stream or IRTF stream document and provides an IESG Note, does the RFC Editor have the authority (without a request for reconsideration or an appeal) to publish the document without the IESG Note?

It would be better to define the problem. As I see it, the problem is that the RFC Editor might drop the IESG Note and publish the document as a RFC. Once that is done, there is no way to revert back. With the forthcoming changes to the RFC Editor, the IETF Community and/or the IESG are facing an unknown. I suggest following John's proposal. A formal notification from the ISE and delay in the publication gives the IESG the opportunity to take any action it deems fit.

Regards,
-sm
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