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Re: How many standards or protocols...

2002-04-16 09:25:05
then who makes that decision? You or the WG Chairs? The AD's???

The IETF as a community, depending on rough consensus. If the rough
consensus is that there will be multiple protocols, then then there will be.
If not, then not.

Rough also means not everyone will agree with the decision.

But why is the question? If there are people actively working on the
effort
and they want to continue, why is the management making any decisions as
to
which protocols to push?

There must be sufficient support for the effort and that must be rough
consensus. People activiely (solo or team) working is not enough.

The cost of persuits is not borne by the IETF though so what's the point?
Why should the WG constrain any effort over another? This is a curiosity
of
mine, that being why a WG should have squat to say at the management level
about the content of its protocols, only whether they are completed and
elevated to the next level or not. This is the core flaw in the IETF's
process. The WG Chairs need an arms length from each of the protocol
efforts
and to act as mentors for all the projects that have committed
participants.
They are not the ones to decide what the WG will and will not focus on,
its
membership is.

In an ideal situation, the wg chairs would make decision based on what he
determined as a rough consensus of the working group. It is typical that a
handful of people will disagreed with the decision anyway but a loud voice
doesn't mean you'll get your way.

But if there are sufficient people who disagreed with the decision of the
chairs, then the chairs have failed to determine the rough consensus. That
decision will be overturned.

It does not matter what the contributions the working group chairs made,
what protocol they supports, what they thinks or what they eat last week *as
long* as the final decision represent a rough consensus of the group.

If you think the wg chairs should be arms length and "mentoring role", you
should be looking elsewhere, not IETF.

As to the actual content and form of the protocols themselves,  the
content
and form is up to the contributors and those actively involved in the
vetting process. So I would like to pose the question "why then should any
WG Management have anything to say about which protocols are done in their
groups?".

Why not? Does been a wg chairs means he/she have to stop been a contributor?

Several have said to me that they need this ability to drive focus into
the
group. The problem is that there is no formal definition as to what that
focus is.

Check your working group charter.

Also it needs to be stated that WG participants are not labor
sources for the WG Chair to allocate, they are participants and are all
equal before the IESG - or should be at least.

I think that is why the wg chairs are paid big bucks by the IETF ;-)

Big bucks as in a *BIG* zero with all-expenses-on-your-own deal.


I'd like to hear the IETF community's input on the topic.

                    Harald

Me too!.

I think you should try to keep your disagree with the chairs within your own
working group. Also look into RFC2026 on the appealing process.

-James Seng