Hi Dave, and All, The beauty of the IETF is that it includes all Internet USERS (i.e.people or organisations) around the world, no one should use it in their interest, it should progress in the Internet Society/Community interest following the *open* engineering knowledge and practice. Engineers in IETF cannot disagree covering their reason or reference they SHOULD be open. Comments in line below: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> The IETF needs total transparency and a way to process alternative >> standards >> so that it is not actively involved in anything dark and covert. > > That makes no sense ... something can't be an IETF standard if it doesn't > get created and adopted using The IETF's processes. The word 'standard' > implies the approval of some organization/standards body. The independant > stream does allow publishing of alternatives to IETF Standards, but that > doesn't make tham alternative standards. For that some other recognized > group needs to declare it a standard and then it will be An XYZ Group > Standard, not an IETF Standard. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I agree that the best practice is standards through WGs, because *knowledge* is the core reason for the GROUP, not *politics*. IMHO, the best practice is continue *open-discussions* with engineering and technical knowledge to give progress to WGs, but if some participants don't want to accept to discuss (by ignoring input) or don't want to listen to technical/research reasons in IETF documents or in publications out IETF, how can the WG progress? Still thoes participant MAY continue disagree (without discussing why) when calling for group consensus, what will be the best practice?, will it be that the submitter has to stop even if his/her has better arguments in terms of engineering. Some may fail to convice an IETF WG just because some active participants reply that they think it is bad, without replying *reasonably* to discussions. When I read the IETF procedure, I see that it makes decisions at the *WG-consensus* (with no relation to discussions and arguments) which I think not enough for progress in the eyes of IETF mission statement. Suggest: that if any participant disagree in I-D adoption in a WG, then he/she take a DISCUSS position (similar to IESG memebrs process, cannot just disagree), which they MUST have to take and reply to messages including their good reasons for their positions (you don't reply this idea/I-D is BAD). Any participant (submitter or who disagrees with adoption) SHOULD have an engineering reference(s) for such input. If I am mistaken please advise, because I need to discuss to understand, so we can help together make IETF better for the world users. Best Regards Abdussalam Baryun ++++++++++++++++ The mission of the Internet Engineering Task Force is to make the Internet work better by producing high-quality and relevant technical documents that influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet. See http://www.ietf.org.