Folks,
While that happened in couple cases, in majority that I know of parties
bring in one or more specification and IETF sits down and selects best
parts on technical level for standardization.
It turns out that the IETF Area Director who is shepherding this effort, Russ
Housley, took exception to exactly the draft charter sentence that folks are
discussing here.
Here is what I sent him, in response:
The proffered language is intentionally hard-line. It wasn't chosen whimsically
and I believe there is plenty of IETF precedent for such language, but I
certainly understand feeling that it goes too far.
Since IETF working groups use prior work in different ways, ranging from "read
the thing before we start talking" to "only essential changes permitted", I feel
that specifying something about this is appropriate.
We already know that this general topic engenders lots of undisciplined
discussion, so the need for charter constraints strikes me as clear.
The extent to which a working group like this succeeds or fails will depend upon
how focused it can be kept. Charter language can be extremely helpful for
declaring some topics out of scope.
So the question is (only) how much to declare topica non-grata.
I think that the basis for deciding how hard a line to take depends on how
urgent the work is, how mature the specification is, and how significant the
installed base is.
In this case, I believe:
- the work is very urgent,
- the specification is reasonably mature, and
- the installed base (admittedly of domainkeys rather than dkim, but dkim is
going to start having installed base quickly, it appears) is significant enough
to try to protect.
Having no constraints will almost certainly result in taking a long time to
produce an incompatible specification. I think that would kill the effort.
<<<<<
So...
A couple of people have proffered alternative text. It would be particularly
productive to have the discussion focus on finding consensus on the text.
Given that it is the simplest and smallest change, what do folks think of Ned
Freed's suggestion:
Had you said something like "deemed useful to improve the viability of
services based on these specifications" I would have no problem. That's
about where the bar needs to be IMO.
d/
---
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
+1.408.246.8253
dcrocker a t ...
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