I don't actually mind a two-week cutoff (it's in 2418). The relevant text in
2418 says
7.1. Session documents
All relevant documents to be discussed at a session should be
published and available as Internet-Drafts at least two weeks before
a session starts. Any document which does not meet this publication
deadline can only be discussed in a working group session with the
specific approval of the working group chair(s). Since it is
important that working group members have adequate time to review all
documents, granting such an exception should only be done under
unusual conditions. The final session agenda should be posted to the
working group mailing list at least two weeks before the session and
sent at that time to agenda(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org for publication on the IETF
web
site.
Funny, I myself don't see anything in here at all about an I-D cutoff. What I
do see is a fairly reasonable rule (I think two weeks is a bit too long, but
that's a quibble) about having stuff available for review sufficiently early.
The I-D cutoff is at best a clumsy attempt to enforce this rule mechanically.
So I don't know where the "must have AD approval for exceptions" thing came
from, unless it's a misplaced need to have ADs approve everything.
You're confusing a rule with a procedure which has as one purpose to try and
enforce that rule. Since the procedure is something implemented by the
Secretariat, the question is what whose authority would they accept to make an
exception. Maybe they'd accept a request from a WG chair. Or maybe not.
But let's suppose we can get ADs out of the exception process. As Dave pointed
out last night, the real problem is having to make such exceptions, and this
still doesn't fix that.
If ADs do discover copious and uncharted spare time, I would MUCH prefer
that they spend it steering their working groups, and specifically noticing
milestone offsets so we can move away from the current situation, where many
so many milestones are expressed in terms of ID cutoffs for the next
meeting, more than half the updates are posted within two weeks of the ID
cutoff, and we're floundering through the drafts getting ready for the
meetings.
This is a consequence of the RFC 2418 rule and more generally of the way our
process revolves around our meetings. And while I share your dislike here, I
don't think making exceptions to the cutoff or getting rid of it entirely will
change this in any significant way. We're all busy, IETF work is not the
primary thing most of us do, and it is simple human nature to wait until the
last minute to do stuff.
I am particularly irritated when I see a draft that I submitted comments on
immediately after the last IETF meeting (which was a long time ago), updated
for the first time within a week of the ID cutoff for the next meeting. This
does not give us timely publication - we can't even remember what we were
talking about, in some cases.
An argument for doing less work at meetings and more work on mailing lists,
perhaps, but again I don't see how any sort of change to the cutoff rule can
fix this.
I do, of course, appreciate working group chairs that do stagger their
milestones,
Youi know, it is interesting you should say that, because if it is true
it highlights how different parts of the IETF work quite diferently.
In most of the groups I participate in nobody pays any attention at all to
milestone dates. When a group meets it considers the documents that are ready
to be considered, not the ones that the schedule says must be considered.
Prodding by charis to meet milestone dates is practically unheard of. And lots
of these groups have milestone lists with missed dates. (In fact I believe
there have been cases of milestones seven years or more out of date.)
Ned
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