Hi.
Some comments about the two possible dispute resolution models
-- appeals to the IAB with binding effect or appeals to the IAB
with only advisory effect on the RSE and ISE --that I had made
in an IAB context never made it onto the list, resulting in Jari
being surprised (for which I apologize) and some confusion about
what I intended and why. An edited version of those comments
(there was mostly-unrelated context around the original notes
that isn't repeated here) follows:
I don't see much difference between the alternatives of "IAB
advice to the RFC Editor" and "IAB mandatory instructions to the
RFC Editor" in practice, but have a fairly strong pragmatic
preference for not having to open, or update, 4846. I believe
that, whichever path is chosen, there needs to be a firm
requirement that the disagreement and its content be made public
if things move beyond a certain, fairly early, point. I also
have my usual concern about getting too rigid about this sort of
thing -- if the ISE and RSE ignore strong advice from the IAB,
we have deeper and more serious problems than one IESG note and
will need to deal with those problems in some way.
It is probably also desirable that the statement in the draft
about attached notes, optional or mandatory, point to the
provisions of 4846 that permits withdrawal of a document at any
point. In other words, there should never be any question that
the ISE or author can respond to a demand for a note by
withdrawing the document rather than publishing with the note or
applying other remedies.
While we've been surrounding this discussion with nice words to
the effect that there has never been a real problem and/or that
problems have been solved quickly, it isn't entirely true... and
the main reason why it is mostly true is that, in recent years,
the RFC Editor has backed down rather quickly when such issues
have
arisen, in part because the issues have been raised in contexts
that appeared to involve threats of contractual interference.
RFC 4846 was written in part to reestablish the independence of
the RFC Editor from unreasonable IESG demands; it would, IMO, be
sad to give that up over the principle of mandatory IAB
decisions about notes.
Although I'm not aware of it happening in recent years, the same
ADs who became slightly notorious for holding up IETF work
indefinitely because it wasn't to their personal taste (the
people for whom the IESG eventually created internal
dispute-resolution policies) were sometimes equally aggressive
about trying to prevent publication of documents they found
distasteful as independent submission RFCs and/or to attach
obnoxious notes to them. Of course, all of the occurred in the
dark; part of the historical problem here is lack of openness...
a situation that continues to this day when the only record of
the IESG discussion is a tracker note that there was an
objection.
As the IAB moves to select an ISE, the choices are presumably
not going to be limited to people who will uncritically accept
things that the IESG tells them. With a strong and independent
ISE, if the IESG imposed a note that the ISE, the Editorial
Board, and the authors found really offensive, the ISE would
probably decide to not publish the document and might, instead,
propose to publish a document for the permanent record that
discussed the content of the original, the issues, the proposed
IESG note, etc. Again, it would make little difference to that
scenario whether the instructions to the RFC Editor were
mandatory or not -- the principle and content would be the
issue. I assume the IESG would want to attach a note to that
document too, although the ISE might then decide to attach
additional text explaining that the IESG was invited to write a
real commentary or response and decided to resort to
note-attaching instead. Of course, good judgment on the part of
the ISE would get us into that situation only under the most
extreme of circumstances, circumstances that we can reasonably
predict will not occur. But, if the circumstances are not real,
then the need for a mandatory override procedure isn't either.
As some comments to the IETF list have observed, the use of
"notes" is sometimes a lazy and responsibility-avoiding
alternate to actually engaging in a fair technical discussion. I
would hope that, if an issue like this reaches the IAB, the IAB
would insist on such a discussion and that a reasonable summary
of it be made public. I don't think that needs to be written
down as a requirement.
The other piece of this is that the community has decided,
multiple times, that we want an Independent Submission process
that is actually independent... and, in particular, independent
of the IETF and IESG. That consensus is clearly a rough one:
each time the topic has come up in the last decade or so we have
heard from people who are convinced that the Independent Stream
has outlived its usefulness and others who are convinced that it
should exist only to serve the specific needs and desires of the
IETF and IESG. We had that debate at length when 4844 and 4846
were under discussion and it has intruded into this discussion
of 3932bis.
I see no reason -- nothing actually broken that needs fixing --
to change the balance. I don't believe that the IESG has ever
had a reasonable request for change in a document ignored. If
unreasonable requests are made, the proposed procedures,
including the requirement for notification and explanation, are
more than adequate to act as the basis for discussion, with the
IAB acting as mediator or referee (as 4846 provides) if its
members believe the topic is important enough. Shifting toward
a model in which the IESG can force the IAB into a review and
then force the ISE to accept an IAB decision is just not
demonstrated to be necessary... necessary enough to justify
reopening 4844 and 4846
Speaking pragmatically, I believe that creating a binding
inter-stream appeal process probably requires reopening both
4846 and 4844 and, given many of the comments on the IETF list
about the previous drafts, would lead to our having to recycle
the discussion of the appropriateness of the role of the
multiple-stream model and whether the IESG gets a "first among
equals" role or better. I don't believe that repeating that
discussion yet again would serve the community well and that is
another big argument for the advisory approach.
john
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