I disagree with Keith and think the document should be moved forward
(with John's caveats about the notes for different types of
documents). However, to address one of Keith's specific points:
On 3/26/04 at 4:21 PM -0500, Keith Moore wrote:
A big part of the problem is that the proposed policy would only
allow IESG to object to the publication of a document in the case
where there was an active working group in an area, or where the
document would violate a pre-established procedure. Since working
groups are typically chartered to work on a narrow topic and for a
limited time, at any given time many technical subject areas are not
covered by a working group, and many new protocols would not
conflict with any particular working group even if they would
conflict with (for instance) the operation of established protocols.
No, there is one other item mentioned which covers this case:
o The IESG thinks that this document extends an IETF protocol in a
way that requires IETF review, and should therefore not be
published without IETF review.
If the IESG thinks that a protocol "would conflict with the operation
of established protocols", they can recommend rejection on that basis.
And while the RFC Editor could (and I assume does) enlist volunteers
to assist it in such review, this amounts to an approval process for
IETF publications that isn't accountable to the IETF community, not
even with a noncom-like mechanism.
Of course, even in the current de facto system of IESG review, the
RFC Editor has the ability (under the current written "rules") to
ignore the IESG even if it recommends against publication and publish
anyway. As far as I know, we've never come to that particular
"constitutional crisis".
Suffice it to say, I think Keith's suggested alternative proposal is
just wrongheaded.
--
Pete Resnick <http://www.qualcomm.com/~presnick/>
QUALCOMM Incorporated