Hi Thomas, On 01/22/2013 09:31 PM, Thomas Narten wrote: > FWIW, I share Joe's concerns. And Stephen's responses don't really > change my mind. Ah well. I'm willing to keep trying:-) > This document seems to have a bit of missing the forest for the > trees. In the overall scheme of things, I don't believe the draft will > materially help, and is at best a distraction from dealing with > meaningful problems. Do you mean the experiment or if this became a permanent part of the process? Your comments read as if you're concerned mostly about the latter, and you make no mention of the former. As it happens, I agree that this is not going to produce a huge improvement. But its not intended to, and modest improvements (as opposed to modest proposals:-) should also be ok. If not then we're in a worse process-rut than even I think. > The crux of the issue is that any attempt at "fast tracking" is > fundamentally about short-circuiting some aspect of our review > processes. I'd prefer s/short-circuiting/speeding-up/ > We should only do that very carefully. For example as an experiment? I think we are being careful. > In almost all cases, > individual judgement is needed as to when it is appropriate to do > that. ADs/WG chairs already have some flexibility here. e.g., a WG can > skip WG LC if they think its not needed. And nothing stops an AD from > going to WGLC before doing a careful review. But I'd rather that be > done because the case at hand justifies such an optimization, not > because there is some "running code" checkmark that allows a special > case to be fast tracked.. > > This document risks substituting process for judgement. I'd rather see > more of the latter and less of the former. Disagree. The WG chairs exercise judgement to kick off the process. The IESG exercise judgement as usual with no changes. > > Some specifics from the doc: > >> In summary this experiment collapses three stages of the publication >> process to run concurrently: working group last call, AD review, and >> IETF last call. Additionally, the experiment will only require > > IMO, it is almost never appropriate to collapse WG LC and IETF LC. In > cases where it is appropriate to do so, there presumably isn't a need > for a WG LC to start with. And an AD has always been able to start an > IETF LC without doing a detailed review. The point, is judgement is > needed, and all such cases are best handled on a case-by-case > basis. What's wrong with the judgement of a set of WG chairs? AFAIK, ADs are no wiser in general and this one is certainly dumber than a lot of WG chairs. > Surely, we don't need a document to justify doing this in those cases > where it makes sense... > >> IETF last call. Additionally, the experiment will only require >> issues raised during these three stages to be addressed if they meet >> the IESG's Discuss criteria. The former is not formally a >> process > > and later: > >> 4. Only comments that would be "DISCUSS-worthy" according to the >> IESG Discuss Criteria [DCRIT] need be handled during last call. >> Other comments can be handled or not, at the authors/editors >> discretion. > > The above can easily become a way to dismiss legitimate review > comments. Equally, gratuitous nit-picking can be used to try kill something with a thousand cuts. Neither are at all common that I can see, during IETF LC. I think incorporating the discuss criteria should be an interesting part of the experiment. (I've found them really helpful in reviewing documents these last couple of years.) > No doubt, when a AD or reviewer suggests "this needs > fixing", the proponents will hold up this document and say "you > shouldn't do this, per the RFC -- you're violating the spirit of this > document, only really really critical stuff needs to get addressed..." > No thanks. That is not what the IETF is about. I don't see how you get to "No doubt..." I do entirely doubt that'll happen for most all editors. > If it is really urgent to get a document done, it is far better to > take steps to make sure the editors are engaged and responsive. That > is more likely the real issue!!! Urgency isn't a part of this. Going faster doesn't imply urgency. > >> It is understood that the savings in time for the end-to-end delivery >> of a proposed standard or experimental RFC may be modest, however, >> the modifications to normal IETF process will also serve as an >> indication of the importance that the IETF places in running code. > > Running code is valuable. Always has been, always will be. But we need > to resist the temptation of making "running code" more equal than > other criteria or putting it on a pedestal as some sort of holy > grail. I agree. And this draft doesn't do that. Or are you saying it does? > Running code by itself is just a sound bite. The importance of > running code is what it tells us about a protocol specification. Just > the mere fact that there is running code doesn't mean there is > anything particularly enlightening to learn from an > implementation. For example, "running code" of a router function in > software doesn't necessarily say anything as to whether the code can > be implemented efficiently using ASICs, which may be the real > requirement. Sure. The proposal says that this won't be suitable for all drafts. In response to other comments we had the idea of building up text about that as part of a wiki. >> 5. The responsible AD for the WG concerned makes the decision as to >> whether changes are required as a result of review comments, and >> determines whether or not those have been completed. If >> significant change or extended discussion is required, or if >> changes are not complete within two weeks after the end of fast- >> track last call, then the draft is returned to the WG by the >> responsible AD and the document is withdrawn from the experiment. > > The two week figure is too stringent. Possibly. But I think its a useful quid-pro-quo - if the authors want fast track review but aren't willing to do fast edits then I think they ought not get fast-track review. I think the timers in general are something that an experiment may show to be ok or not. And if not, then changing 'em would be easy if we wanted to continue this after the experiment. > The above is too prescriptive to > be practical. For starters, how will the IESG telechat align with the > ending of LC? That's covered in the draft. Could be it needs to be better stated. (Basically, next telechat that's more than one week after the authors have done their changes, if they got those done within the two weeks after the end of LC.) > Or what if an IESG member issues a defer (or will those > be disallowed?). No change there. IESG evaluation is entirely unaffected by this. The draft says that. > Section 4 has a bit too much detail and process in it. I'm sure it has > both too much and too little actually. I.e., it probably misses some > corner cases, and then what do you do given how prescriptive the rest > of the section is? That's fair. Its hard to get the right balance there. I think some of that text could be better on a wiki, as discussed in response to some earlier comments. > But overall, I see this document at best as a no-op. However, I fear > that it can be used to short-circuit our review processes in a way > that doesn't help the IETF and that won't really speed things up > enough to justify the downsides. I think the worst case is nothing happens but that if this does get tried, we'll learn something about our processes and (of course:-) I reckon we ought do the experiment. Cheers, S. > > Thomas > > >