Hi Tom,
Obviously WGs operate very differently. My observation when reading draft-crocker-id-adoption-05 was that it has a lot of good thoughts - and that is why I find the document indeed useful. I just want to feed back some additional questions that I sometimes have to deal with, under the assumptions that other WGs may run into similar questions from time to time, too. Obviously, that assumption might be wrong, and I stated this already in my initial posting. I don't want to start a process discussion.
But, for what it is worth, I don't understand why mentioning a question about the intended status of a document as well as a question on the milestone deadline would "constrain the good practioners". I have to deal with both questions each time we adopt a new draft as WG document, and I thought it could be useful to have them in the kind of checklist that draft-crocker-id-adoption provides. For instance, both questions are also valid ones for a WG that adopts all drafts nobody objects to.
Thanks
Michael
________________________________________
Von: t.p. [daedulus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Gesendet: Montag, 6. Januar 2014 11:29
An: Scharf, Michael (Michael); dcrocker@xxxxxxxx; ietf@xxxxxxxx
Betreff: Re: Last Call: <draft-crocker-id-adoption-05.txt> (Creating an IETF Working Group Draft) to Informational RFC
<inline <tp>>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scharf, Michael (Michael)" <michael.scharf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <dcrocker@xxxxxxxx>; <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2014 6:30 PM
Hi Dave,
Yes, a statement like "Does the intended status of the document seem
reasonable to the working group?" in Section 2.2 would make sense a lot
of sense to me. This is what I was looking for.
I agree that the WG energy and willingness to review is somehow part of
"working on the draft", but I still wonder whether it can be made more
explicitly. I am not sure whether it belongs to Section 3, which is
about authors/editors selection. WG energy also seems somehow orthogonal
to most other sections. Here is one idea for specific text (there are
other options as well): If it is hard to find reviewers for a given
topic, the document will inherently move forward rather slowely... So,
what about the following question in Section 2.2:
<tp>
Michael
I track TCPM and so know of your approach, but other WGs are at the
other end of the spectrum, seeming almost to say
- noone has said anything so we will adopt this I-D
- noone has said anything so we will move to WGLC
- noone has said anything so we will move this to the IESG
even when dealing with core Internet Procotols.
I have not analysed the results but suspect that the output of such WG
lead to more IETF LC comments or more errata or more -bis or ...
But there is an enormous spectrum. Another example is a limit on the
cache size of WG I-Ds - no further I-Ds can be adopted until one of the
current ones has been handed on to the IESG; this, for me, is the worst
approach so far - perhaps sound business management practice but not so
sound engineering, at least from my perspective.
So, the concern as alway with these process I-Ds is that they tend to
become overprescriptive and reduce the quality or rate or both of the
work that the IETF does.
A good process I-D is one that seeks to eliminate bad practice, one that
increases the mean by focussing on the minima, one that seeks to remove
the defective WG Chair behaviour - or if that proves impractical, remove
the WG Chair :-( Ones that seek to promote best practice usually
constrain the good practioners too much, prevent us from finding better
ways of working.
Tom Petch
* After adoption, is it likely that the document will move forward in
a reasonable timeframe, e.g., as defined by a charter milestone?
In general, I don't have a particularly strong opinion on my second
point, and I don't strongly insist on a change of the draft.
Thanks
Michael
________________________________________
Von: Dave Crocker [dhc@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Gesendet: Samstag, 4. Januar 2014 23:33
An: Scharf, Michael (Michael); ietf@xxxxxxxx
Betreff: Re: Last Call: <draft-crocker-id-adoption-05.txt> (Creating an
IETF Working Group Draft) to Informational RFC
Michael,
Thanks for the comments. Responding strictly on my own behalf:
On 1/3/2014 9:32 AM, Scharf, Michael (Michael) wrote:
> First, the document could perhaps mention that during the adoption of
> a draft there can be a discussion about the planned status (e.g., STD
> vs. EXP), even if the status can change later in the process. In
> TCPM, this is almost always the case, and therefore the chairs have
> to consider the planned status as one question when creating/adopting
> a WG draft.
This sounds like another bullet in the Section 2.2. Criteria for
Adoption list. Possibly:
* Does the intended status of the document seem reasonable to the
working group?
> Second, I am not sure if the following statement in Section 2.2 could
> be detailed a bit:
>
> * Is there strong working group support for working on the draft?
>
> Actually, in TCPM, the "working group support for working on the
> draft" is often not the most important criteria for adoption. The key
> one is the more specific question whether there indeed "working group
> energy for contributing and reviewing". For instance, sometimes, we
> have the following situation: The community really likes a new,
> interesting idea, and the WG therefore really wants that "somebody"
> works out all the nasty protocol details that a full spec would
> require. This is typically left to the authors of the individual
> document proposing this idea. Yet, since TCPM deals with a core
> Internet protocol, having a WG document also implies that the WG
> should indeed verify this spec, e.g., in all the corner cases that
> can occur in a complex protocol. And, surprise, surprise, finding
> volunteers for that is often more difficult than finding people that
> really like an idea and want the WG to work on it... As a result, the
> chairs have to think about the completion of any new WG document
> quite a bit in advance...
Hmmm. Certainly a reasonable scenario, IMO, but I would have thought
the current draft covers what you describe.
The fact that you don't see that leaves me unclear how to fix this, so
that there's no doubt it is considered a legitimate scenario.
1. The document discusses the difference between having the
document be author-driven vs. working-driven, in Section 3.
2. I think of the wg reviewing effort you describe as "working on
the draft" and hence qualifying under the bullet you quote.
Best I can think of is to ask you for suggested text changes/additions.
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net