Dave, It's possible you've misunderstood Gonzalo, or that you're missing part of the point. In the first point that you question below, the words "that will be put forward for such evaluation" seems likely to be relevant to the process for "choosing among them" (where "them" in this case seems to refer to the "large number of documents" in Magnus' posting). Many of the proposals made in the IETF fail to be chosen for advancement. It seems likely to me that many IETF participants would like to understand how a decision to ignore some proposals and advance others is made. In your second point, you compare the performance of financial results (only - at best - grossly attributable to behavior of arbitrary groups of people) to predictability of individuals, both based on prior behaviors. I suspect many would agree that behavior of individuals is notably more predictable than behavior of arbitrary groups of people. -- Eric -----Original Message----- From: ietf [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dave Crocker Sent: Friday, December 06, 2013 11:40 AM To: Gonzalo Camarillo; IETF Discussion Cc: rtcweb-chairs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: A few thoughts on processes WAS (Re: Alternative decision process in RTCWeb) Gonzalo, On 12/6/2013 2:57 AM, Gonzalo Camarillo wrote: > Where people seem to disagree, often strongly, is on how proposals that > will be put forward for such evaluation by the WG and the IETF community > can be generated. That's odd. I hadn't even noticed that that was part of the proposal for voting circulated to the community, nor that it was a focus of responses. From Magnus' original posting of the proposal: "A large number of documents, over an extended period of time, with nothing published, suggests some deep and serious problems for an effort in the IETF." That's not about generating proposals but about choosing among them. > On a related note, there have been some comments about the RTCWeb chairs > effectively attacking the IETF principles. I think those comments are > unfair. We are talking about three former ADs in different areas all of > whom have made significant contributions to the IETF community along > many years. As financial reports often note: "Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns..." More significantly, Gonzalo, you've just invoked an ad hominem argument as a defense (or justification.) It's no more legitimate as a defense than as an attack. Stated simply: the nature of the people who made the proposal is irrelevant. What matters is the nature of the proposal. And my own reading of the criticisms of the proposal that was circulated was that they did primarily focus on the nature of the proposal, rather than on the nature of the proposal's authors. But as long as you've made this personal, what happened to the general preference in the IETF -- especially for efforts that are complex or otherwise difficult -- to have working group chairs /not/ be document authors, so that the chairs can focus on /neutral/ efforts at managing the process? While there are never guarantees about the progress of an IETF working group, such a separation might have had strategic benefit for this effort. I note a number of points of broader concern about this working group: 1. Chartered 1.5 years ago. 2. 11 working group drafts, with 13 related drafts. 3. Nothing yet published. No overviews, architectures, use cases or anything else foundational, nevermind actual specifications. 4. WG can't even resolve choice of a component technology Frankly it does not help that the effort already seems to have excellent market and IETF mindshare as the 'future' of Internet 'rich communications'. Even the recent IAOC request for a volunteer is calling for "exposure" to the technology -- although the technology isn't stable. A large number of documents, over an extended period of time, with nothing published, suggests some deep and serious problems for an effort in the IETF.. What am I mis-understanding? d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net