Hey Pete,
Like Randy, I sense a fair degree of process omphaloskepsis here. These consensus calls seem to have captured the high-level consensus of the IETF, as gathered in plenary at this meeting. Yes, there was argument about more specific details at the PERPASS meeting, but I don't think that invalidates the more general agreement.
On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 11:21 PM, Pete Resnick <presnick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Some folks approached me after the plenary and asked me why I objected so loudly to these "taking of hums". Tim's response pretty well explains it:
On 11/6/13 6:58 PM, Randy Bush wrote:Yes, the feeling of those present was pretty clear. And if Russ had only asked for the feeling of those present, I probably wouldn't have been torqued. I would have, like Dave described it, thought it a bit of political theater, but otherwise said "Whatever".
On 11/6/13 6:50 PM, Tim Bray wrote:
You’re entitled to your opinion, but I entirely disagree. I thought each of those made an important point and highlighted some areas where consensus is broadly held. I appreciated Russ’ composition of the issues and think he deserves our thanks.
the feeling of those present was pretty clear.
But Russ didn't ask for a "feeling". Russ said that he was asking about consensus, and Tim heard that the result of those hums *were* the IETF coming to consensus. And that's just bogus. There was no consensus, and some of this I think is really damaging to the IETF.
Look at a couple of these:
On 11/6/13 12:41 PM, Russ Housley wrote:
1. The IETF is willing to respond to the pervasive surveillance attack?
Overwhelming YES. Silence for NO.
This was "The IETF wants to save the lives of bunnies." Press release nonsense. And surely so much mush as not to be consensus. Just let's everybody applaud. OK, who cares, but not useful.
3. The IETF should include encryption, even outside authentication, where practical.
Strong YES. Silence for NO.
So if you sat in perpass, you'll know that the result of this hum was rubbish. There were a bunch of people up at the mic in perpass who objected strenuously to this. There was no IETF consensus on this point. But if you took the result of the bogus hum as consensus, you'd sure think so. And that happened because Russ loaded the deck in the way he asked the question to make sure that nobody would hum against it. He asked it at the end when it was clear there would be no discussion of dissent, so that people who might have objected felt comfortable that at least they'd have a chance to explain themselves instead of looking like idiots humming against motherhood and apple pie. Pure nonsense.
This wasn't about getting consensus. This was about everybody feeling good about themselves and being able to applaud. And if anyone tries to enforce any of these things as consensus of the IETF (e.g., "Sorry; we had a hum and there was consensus that we're doing encryption without authentication whether you'd like to or not, so you're in the rough"), that should be appealed immediately.
This is vote stuffing in the extreme. It's ignoring (heck, it's actively suppressing) minority voices. It makes a joke of coming to consensus at all.
And all that said, since when does the IAB judge the consensus of the IETF? Not since 1992, as far as I remember.
I don't disagree with any of the statements per se. As Scott Brim pointed out, the statements were incredibly general and left all sorts of stuff undefined, so it's hard to know exactly what I'm signing up to by agreeing with them. But again, it's motherhood and apple pie for most of them. (The second might have been interesting if it weren't buried in the middle of the rest.) And it made for fine press. But IETF consensus? Bullpucky.
pr
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Pete Resnick<http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. - +1 (858)651-4478