Re: Request for feedback - IESG thoughts about new work proposals

Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Sat, 14 Oct 2017 08:17:57 -0400



    On 10/11/2017 09:21 AM, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:

    
          The
            IESG has spent considerable time discussing how we can
            improve our ability to charter new work as soon as it’s
            ready and ensure proposals have the resources needed for
            success. We want to share our expectations about BOF
            requests and new work proposals with the community because
            we are interested in feedback. 

          
    So I understand the scope of this request for feedback to be about
    improving IESG's ability to charter new work, and that's an
    admirable goal on IESG's part.  

    
    However, I wonder if IESG has come to think of the purpose of BOFs
    as being to lead to new WG charters in the short term.   If true, I
    think it's unfortunate.

    
    One of IETF's biggest problems IMO is the tendency to silo work, to
    fail to recognize when there is a need for broadly applicable work
    rather than point solutions.   This in turn leads to a great deal of
    unnecessary complexity in network code and applications, and a
    tremendous amount of wasted effort.   The resulting tendency is to
    produce too many working groups, too many standards documents, and
    standards documents with too-limited scope or applicability.   

    
    Note that I said this is IETF's problem, not specifically IESG's
    problem.   But I see essentially no effort within IETF to try to
    identify common ground between different concerns, or to look for
    opportunities to address multiple concerns with a common
    framework.   And it's much easier to do this before working groups
    are chartered, than after.   IAB has sometimes tried to do this by
    holding meetings, but the meetings have seemed fairly exclusive
    (there are high barriers to participation) and also have taken a
    long time to produce results.  

    
    I'd like to see an effort to encourage IETF participants in general
    (not just a few handpicked people) to think more broadly.   I'd like
    to see more meeting time devoted to identifying common ground and
    opportunities for more broadly applicable work.   Such efforts
    should NOT be expected to propose working groups, at least not in
    the near term.   It's fine if they do, but the expectation should
    not be there.   And I don't care what such sessions are called, but
    I think BOFs were originally supposed to be able to serve such
    purposes.

     
    And maybe IESG is too busy to charter them, because it needs to be
    focused on working groups.   Maybe that should be left to IAB or
    some committee appointed for that purpose.   But there should be a
    clearly visible path by which IETF participants can request such
    sessions.

    
    Keith

    
    p.s. It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a working group,
    to treat every problem as if the solution were more protocol
    specifications.