On today's BOF approval call, the IESG and IAB had an in-depth
discussion of the i18nRP BOF proposal. One of the topics that was most
discussed is a concern that the BOF does not have a clear path to
success, largely because the proposal has very little discussion of
proposed potential outcomes. While we do not expect the proponents to
presuppose an outcome, we believe that achieving a positive outcome
requires one or more specific proposals to serve as a basis for the
conversation.
At the same time, the volume of traffic on the IETF mailing list on this
topic does seem to demonstrate that there is interest in discussing
topics related to internationalization. The ART area directors have
therefore provisionally approved the BOF, subject to the proponents
and/or any other interested parties providing concrete proposals as a
basis for discussion.
Concretely, this means that the secretariat has been requested to
schedule a one-hour slot for the Montreal meeting for the proposed BOF.
If no concrete proposals for procedural approaches to address the issues
described by the BOF proponents are available by Wednesday, June 13th,
the secretariat will be requested to remove the BOF from the schedule.
Although it did not come up during the call, I personally wish to point
out that open-ended brainstorming sessions without concrete proposals
are typically handled as unofficial side-meetings (either in person or
virtually). If the BOF proponents wish to maintain the open-ended
brainstorm session described in the current proposal, the side meeting
scheduling mechanism remains available; and I would be happy to help out
should any difficulties occur in using that mechanism.
Please send proposals and any other follow-up messages to i18nrp@xxxxxxxx
/a
