John,
Thank you for your considered response and helpful comments.
While I'm sure that others will no doubt respond to your note, as
you've addressed the note specifically to Marshall and myself as
listed authors of the IETF pact draft, I'd like to respond to your
note in the areas where you have commented on the draft, and take the
opportunity to provide some degree of personal motivation as to why
the document advocated specific actions and not others. Obviously
Marshall as co-author can respond from his perspective.
The first is that I'd like to highlight a difference of scope in the
draft note and your response. The draft took a deliberately focused
perspective in looking at the relationship between the IESG and
Working Groups, and looked at various measures that could have a
positive impact on the IETF's process in terms of its predictability,
accountability, competency and timeliness. It is certainly possible to
look at the entirety of the roles of the ADs and IETF chair and make
comment on various measures that could allow the ADs to focus on a
certain set of tasks while suggesting that other tasks be undertaken
in different ways. I note that you have indeed taken this broader
approach and made some observations concerning the process of the
review of individual submissions to the RFC Editor, the broader role
of the RFC Editor, the role of involvement as an expert reviewer of
protocol parameter registration requests for the IANA, and the
potential role of additional support staff within the IETF structure
rather than a heft reliance on ADs and the IETF chair to do both what
could be termed "high level" and "low level" tasks. There are many
implications of taking such a broader review and in advocating various
measures there are consequent issues concerning the resource
requirements to undertake such measures, the means by which such
resources could be secured by the IETF and the implications on the
nature of the IETF in each of the various funding scenarios. It is
possible, indeed probable that in taking on such a broad agenda,
consideration of such issues may well concentrate issues that may or
may not be central to the thrust of the advocated measures, and that
the momentum for any form of change could well be lost. I am sure that
we can all relate first hand experiences in our lives where such as
been the case. Accordingly, I can respond by saying that while I
appreciate that there are broader issues here, the decision to
document a focused set of issues and propose a number of measures was
indeed a deliberate decision. Part of the motivation is that the
measures are considered to be within a set of conceivable and
achievable outcomes, that I would say a beneficial for the IETF to
consider.
You identify some level of tension between timeliness and
competency. There is a balance to be struck here for, as the draft
notes, a tardy document is also lacking in utility and its competence
is validly questionable in that it then documents history, rather than
documenting standards for internet technologies and their application
in a way that is of material benefit to the broader industry. As a
(perhaps overly trite) summary of the balance to be struck here, the
balance is between the aphorisms that "good work takes time" and "too
little too late" The draft takes the stance that the process is overly
slow and the cost lies in the relevance and utility of our outputs. To
the extent that you are arguing that there is a balance to be struck
here obviously I can agree with you here. To the extent that you may
be advancing the view that we are currently working in a "fast enough
mode and too faster would be a problem in terms of quality of output"
then I find myself with a different personal perspective. You argue
that the balance needs to be an explicit decision, and in that I can
certainly agree.
Your note suggests that by bounding the outcomes on WGs there is an
involvement for realistic requirements on IESG in terms of the
turnaround of documents and questions, etc. While the draft does not
explore the issues relating the turnaround relating to queries, the
draft does advocate a bounded model of IESG discussion on a WG
document.
I am unsure as to how one should interpret your comment relating to
the conflict between the roles of technical oversight and process
management and the role standards approval and certification. To the
extent that one can observe that there are remarkably few approved and
certified standards ever produced by the IETF (58 in total, and none
since September 2000) then either this conflict is so large that it is
unworkable, or the full standards process is no longer relevant to us,
and that we have no interest in progressing documents all the way
through such a process.
You appear to be saying that a greater level of area focus within the
IESG, as proposed in the draft is reasonable, but then offer the view
that there exist a class of WGs that do not have a clear means of
associating the WG within an area, and that the proposal does not
appear reasonable to you for this class of WGs. You also note that the
support of the responsible ADs far outweighs the objections of a
single AD. Yes, this is true, but in considering this, isn't it then
incumbent on the objecting AD to be able to advocate the reasons for
objections to the other ADs in the IESG and do so in a manner that has
sufficient credibility and substance such that the view has
significant support within the IESG that this is indeed a credible and
competent objection that has not been appropriately considered by the
WG? Any delegation of role requires trust, and, yes there is, to some
extent an advocacy of a delegation for the responsibility of
competence to the area and the working group chair and an associated
trust that the outcomes are indeed competent and well reviewed. The
opposite of such trust models are models of mutual distrust and
suspicion, and operating under such models is often time consuming,
inefficient, and often highly stressful. You characterize the
proposals in the draft as tending to reinforce some of today's bad
behaviours, while I would indeed argue that they are intended to
produce the opposite outcome.
Your note indicates that there exists a class of WGs for which the
bounded outcome model will clearly fail, but your discussion of this
item then talks about the manner in which the IESG should assess a WG
proposal for which there is only narrow but intense and articulate
interest. You then propose that the chartering of a WG should be
debated in an open forum that can allow the IESG to achieve clear
guidance. The draft proposes that WG charters should use a utility
focus, describing the problem or intended benefit, the intended
beneficiaries and the likely areas of difficulties that may be
anticipated. To the extent that the draft does nopt specifically
address the manner by which a WG chartering decision should be made by
the IESG in terms of any specific proposals for change, your proposal
here and the draft do not appear to be in any area of conflict.
Finally you note that the IESG doesn't often "reject" a document,
and you voice the opinion that perhaps it should do so more often. The
observation I have heard often is that there are cases where a
document may stall in the IESG for an indeterminate period of
time. Perhaps this is worse than rejection, in that the working group
is now not in a position to directly "unwedge" to document. The draft
attempts to address this by proposing that IESG consideration of WG
documents is undertaken within a bounded process.
The second part of your comment refers to suggestions for structural
change, and I suspect is addressed to the IETF community in general
rather than more directly to Marshall and myself as the listed authors
of the pact draft. As I have already taken up probably too much
reader's time and patience in this response, I trust you will excuse
me if I do not continue here with any specific comments on your
suggestions.
kind regards,
Geoff Huston