Hi John, Spencer,
At 02:23 PM 24-05-2019, John C Klensin wrote:
Since I've been cited in my co-author capacity, a few
comments... Note that, while I supplied an earlier draft for
use as a starting point, left the question of whether to list me
as co-author to SM, and agree with what this draft is trying to
accomplish, I've been trying to stay out of this one. The
reasons may become clear below.
I viewed it as the appropriate thing to do.
Once upon a time, there was general agreement that, if something
was a "real" procedure, it was agreed upon by community
consensus, published in the RFC Series, and then generally
adhered to. IESG (and IAB) statements, when made at all, were
general guidance to the community about how the IESG (or IAB)
intended to do its work, rather than rigid rules: if special
circumstances arose, good sense would always be applied rather
than prior statements about procedures. In that same long-ago
time, if an IESG or IAB member, or the whole bodies, started
behaving as if they had somehow been anointed with imperial, or
perhaps divine, wisdom or authority, the community had, and
used, corrective methods that were far faster and less ambiguous
than the recall mechanism, typically methods that were applied
at plenaries and that often involved, at least metaphorically,
airborne application of ripe fruit.
The "IESG Statements" might be similar to "executive orders" except
that their status is unknown. The IESG also invented the
IONs. There is some information about that in RFC 6393.
I have heard of imperial bodies. I find it odd that an entity which
describes itself as the "most prominent standards bodies" seeks to
evolve into an elected monarchy. However, there is not much I can do
about it as it is easy for a person to be targeted when it is known
that he/she does not have access to the redress mechanism.
My impression is that the community at that time was far more
concerned about several members of the IESG (or of the IAB)
getting together to force someone out who was taking strong
positions that didn't agree with the majority view than it was
about serious and objective malfeasance or non-feasance.
I assume that you are referring to using one's position to push an agenda.
Like more good stories starting with "once upon a time", some
aspects of that era are at least a bit mythical. But I think
Anyone from afar might view it as an era of enchantment.
things have actually changed and that, in particular, the use by
the community of plenaries as a control function for any issues
significantly more important than the quantity or quality of
cookies has largely vanished. Among other effects, that makes
the recall mechanism the community's first line of defense
against bad behavior rather than a second or third level method.
If that is true, it better be equally available to all
participants in the IETF and it better be fair. It should also
be usable in practice, but those are actually separable problems.
The plenary have fallen in disuse since over a decade. I suggest
taking a look at Section 4 of RFC 7437.
As the co-author who is presumably being referenced, I believe I
have learned three things about process change proposals in the
last decade (I see NEWTRK as a turning point; others may have
different impressions):
(1) While we can make, or at least pretend we can make, purely
technical decisions about protocol standards, procedural ones
are inevitably a matter of taste. That turns "whose taste?"
into an important question, especially if there are tradeoffs
involving who might be helped or put at risk by a particular
decision.
It is not possible to make those purely technical decisions without a
set of procedures to regulate how the decisions will be taken. As
John mentioned, those decisions could be perceived as a matter of taste.
(2) Procedural change proposals that originate with (or are
actively discussed within) the IESG and that are written up by
one AD and sponsored/shepherded by another, are going to go
through. I presume there is a level of community consensus
against such a proposal that would kill it but, given that much
of the community won't spend time engaging with and commenting
on procedural changes and that the IESG determination of rough
consensus is inherently somewhat subjective, almost any proposal
generated and handled that way is going to be accepted,
published, and, unless it explicitly says otherwise, treated as
a set of firm rules.
The above is about the breath of consensus. If the IETF seeks to be
an international body, should the breath of engagement reflect
that? The easy way is to choose the path of convenience and call it
"rough consensus".
(3) Procedural change proposals that do not originate with the
IESG and that don't have immediate strong support from within
the IESG have, statistically, a grim future ahead of them,
especially if their effect would include either changing the
IESG's responsibilities or increasing the ways in which the
community can hold the IESG, or IESG members, accountable.
I noticed that.
Especially with procedural proposals, rather than technical
ones, the IESG has a rather wide range of options for killing
something about which they are not enthused, starting with
insisting on a BOF or two, forcing discussions off the IETF list
and into one for which people who are not strongly committed to
procedural issues won't sign up, claiming that the BOF does not
show sufficient support (easily encouraged by scheduling a F2F
BOF, appointing leadership who are skeptical about, or hostile
to, the idea) or even concluding that there is insufficient
support on the mailing list to justify holding a BOF, broadening
scope sufficiently to make convergence in a WG before everyone
It is easy to terminate a proposal as per process rules. That works
well for anyone who is more than happy to do whatever the IESG wishes.
runs out of energy, etc. Because each of those decision points
involves an IESG evaluation of consensus and whether the topic
is worth more community time, separating entirely reasonable
decisions from abusive behavior is generally going to be
impossible. With NEWTRK, we even saw the IESG receive documents
on which the WG had consensus and refuse to initiate an IETF
Last Call (and make it clear than an appeal would go nowhere).
There is not much which can be done if the IESG does not address an
appeal adequately.
I hope and trust that this draft is viewed with enough interest
in the community and the IESG that it will be an exception to
the above and, in particular, that SM will submit a proposal for
either a virtual BOF or one in Montreal, that the BOF will
confirm that it is appropriate to go ahead with this narrow
piece of work, and that a WG, if needed at all, will be
confirmed quickly and can progress rapidly and without F2F
meetings. But history does not lead to optimism.
:-)
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
