--On Friday, January 25, 2013 14:36 +0100 Eliot Lear
<lear@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 1/22/13 10:31 PM, Thomas Narten wrote:
>> a WG can
>> skip WG LC if they think its not needed.
>
> ???
>
> When was the last time that happened? Did it require a
> consensus call to determine?
Chair discretion. It is seems clear that the WG is in agreement
on all relevant issues and has adequately reviewed the document,
a WG LC is just another way to waste time. Keep in mind that,
whether there is a WG LC or not, WG members are permitted to
comment in IETF LC. Although it may be bad taste for a WG
member to disagree during IETF LC about issues already settled,
we don't forbid that and, because of a lot of edge cases and the
vague possibility of abuse, it would be a terrible idea to
forbid it.
Other than added bureaucracy, a WG LC serves only the following
purposes:
* If the WG participants haven't adequately reviewed the
document(s), a WG LC can provide a deadline and forcing
function for more reviews.
* Surprises during IETF LC and long debates on the IETF
list waste the community's time and distract from other
discussions. If a WG LC might contribute to identifying
and understanding the issues before the document reaches
IETF LC and possibly even resolving them in the WG, that
is almost certainly A Good Thing. A WG Chair who can't
make an guess about whether such issues are likely to
arise (or issues that were thought settled really were
not) probably needs to retire (and should certainly err
in the direction of doing a WG LC).
In the context of draft-farrell-ft, the above makes the idea of
WG LC in parallel with IETF LC either irrelevant or bad news.
If the WG Chair (or AD) concludes that a WG LC is needed, then
the procedure should not be invoked. If a WG LC is not needed,
then organizing things so that one is conducted in parallel with
the IETF LC risks having two discussions going on in parallel
with comments made to the WG list not being exposed to the
community (remember the days when IETF LC comments were
routinely sent to the IESG and not to the IETF list?). And, if
the WG does conduct a WG LC, the document can be read as
forbidding use of the FT procedure to condense and set timelines
on the rest of the process (something I'd suggest fixing if we
are going to go ahead with this).
All of this points out one of my main concerns. Almost as a
side-effect, the proposal formalizes a number of informal
procedures and mechanisms work pretty well most of the time but,
because they are informal, can be used flexibly without a big
fuss. If we are going to formalize them, we really should be
asking questions about consensus, exception cases, and so on...
and risk another several steps in the direction of trying to
substitute procedures for judgment, responsibility, and
accountability.
john