Re: call for ideas: tail-heavy IETF process

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On 5/14/2013 1:59 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote:

Joe,

On 05/14/2013 09:45 PM, Joe Touch wrote:
As important as the DISCUSS criteria are, there are NON-DISCUSS criteria
that ought to be more carefully followed - including the point that
disagreements with the WG or clarifications are not justification for
DISCUSS.

I had assumed that the term discuss-criteria meant [1] which includes
both. Not sure if that's also what you meant but worth adding the URL
here just in case some folks aren't familiar with it.

    [1] https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html

DISCUSS is a heavyweight mechanism that holds up document resolution;

Agreed. But its a keystone in the current process. So getting
rid of it would be fairly revolutionary. (Not that I'm against
a bit of revolving now and then:-)

I am *not* suggesting getting rid of it.

I *am* suggesting that it needs to be used only where necessary, and that 'necessary' ought to be clearly proved by:

	- citing the specific DISCUSS criteria involved

	- providing explicit information on what would
	be required to clear the DISCUSS

it
should be used only where absolutely appropriate.

s/absolutely appropriate/appropriate/ would be better.

If the IESG wants to
have a "discussion" with the authors, they are welcome to participate in
the WGs or IETF LC, or to contact them out of band.

With our current tail-heavy process, and ~100 WGs that's impossible
in almost all cases.

The NON-DISCUSS criteria imply that DISCUSS is not an opportunity for late input. I appreciate that early input isn't practical, but that does NOT provide a rationale for violating the NON-DISCUSS criteria (technical disagreement with the WG, etc. - see the list).

The IESG can offer its advice in COMMENTS in other positions. It can make suggestions, and let the authors and ADs decide what to do.

But it should NEVER hold a document hostage with a DISCUSS without specific merit.

Since some of you asked, here's a *current* example:

------

Ted Lemon issued a DISCUSS on a doc I have pending - here's the link:

http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tcpm-experimental-options/ballot/

Note that his DISCUSS raises the point that 32-bit ExIDs "don't add value" and are "pointless" (despite having several paragraphs of justification in the doc). That's second-guessing the WG, which is listed among the explicit NON-DISCUSS criteria.

There's no clear no collateral damage to the Internet, just damage to those who might use a longer TCP option, and there are implementations that already use this (as well as other TCP options that are much less frugal in their use of option space). It affects only shared use of experimental option codepoints, a situation that's intended to be transient if an option becomes widely used. The choice of 32-bit ExIDs has pros and cons listed in the doc, and both 16-bit and 32-bit ExIDs are allowed.

Right now, he's waiting for the doc to be changed to recommend 16-bit ExIDs. I don't disagree with that suggestion, but is it really appropriate to hold a document hostage using a DISCUSS this way?

I don't think so.

I questioned this process, and he suggested that debating the validity of a DISCUSS was out of scope during IESG review. That's not acceptable to me, and I hope to others.

Joe




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