Hi Ben,
At 02:50 PM 25-10-2019, Benjamin Kaduk wrote:
You give plain-text quotations from another message (or messages?), but
with no Reply-To header or full quoted passages inline, it's hard to provide
There should have been an "In-Reply-To:" header in my message. I
probably did something wrong as it was included in the message which
was submitted.
Please see the following messages for context:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/KdVwXK9LZ70rj53wol1tpi48k0Q#
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/m7jd1XYr6VkB4ErELHlIspovZEo#
an answer in the proper context, but I will try. My interpretation (at
least to the extent I recall) of John's classification of two types of
process proposals is that it was mostly descriptive, of an "either X or not
X" sense, and thus uncontroversial.
Ok.
The role of the IESG in the standards process is described in BCP 9; I
would characterize what's described there as having the IESG be the primary
authority for standards decisions, but given the possibility of appeals,
not the final authority. There is some degree of terminology definition
involved, so I could see others providing a different answer.
The point was that the IESG was given the authority to make those
decisions. In simple terms, IESG members have the power to make
those decisions. I doubt that you read that as meaning that you can
do anything you like or else you would not have mentioned the
possibility of appeals.
You did not ask me specifically for my opinion on "members of the
community" but since I'm replying to the rest of your note I'll make an
attempt at that as well: to me, taking an action to have an interaction
with the activities of the IETF is enough to make one a member of the
community. That could be as much as reading email on our mailing lists,
through authoring drafts and RFCs, holding leadership positions, and more.
Different individuals will of course have different levels of involvement
in the community, and I acknowledge that there will be situations in which
the level of involvement will matter for one reason or another, but the
core idea remains that we are an open community and taking action to be a
part of it ought to suffice.
Part of being in open community is that you and I can have this
exchange. I don't use the word "member" as that can entail having
some obligations. Anyway, the important part is what you communicated above.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
