Date: 2005-01-11 13:33
From: "Addison Phillips [wM]" <aphillips(_at_)webmethods(_dot_)com>
Addressing some issues not covered by others:
In this case we have developed an I-D which would like to obsolete an
existing BCP which itself obsoletes a BCP. The I-D was developed using the
exact same process, procedures, small-"c" community, and so forth that its
predecessors used. I will not argue the subjective issues of whether the
community working on this was large enough or the right one nor the
procedural issue of whether enough notice was given to others. After that
work has progressed for nearly a year and a half, though, we find ourselves
in a Last Call. Certainly those individuals and groups not involved in the
cut-and-thrust of this draft's development are entitled to an opportunity to
consider and comment on our choices, including the requirements we chose to
address and the suitability and compatibility of our solution.
To be clear, it's a New Last Call which followed an earlier Last Call.
Judging by the comments on the technical content and by the authors'
comments, it appears that there is to be at least one more draft
revision, and therefore presumably yet another New Last Call. One
might ask whether hashing out details on the ietf and ietf-languages
lists is an effective way to move forward (as opposed to a WG).
Procedural questions about how this should have happened are interesting and
important to the IETF at large, but given the specific details of our draft's
development, wouldn't it be responsible to separate the two discussions and
focus on the draft at hand? I feel that the technical comments about our
draft to date have mostly been related to compatibility with specific
existing protocols or implementations. I feel that we have suitable ways to
address these concerns (either via persuasion or via modifications to the
draft). Neither Mark nor I are wild-eyed zealots or starry-eyed purists: we
are willing to make adjustments and modifications that make sense in order to
achieve the necessary consensus or revise or abandon aspects of the document
that raise valid issues.
In large measure the technical issues and procedural issues have
been discussed separately. They do, however converge inasmuch as
the lack of an IETF WG has presumably been a factor in lack of IETF
participation in the discussion prior to Last Calls, and the consequent
lack of consideration of IETF protocols (including core Internet
protocols).
So.... what do we need to do to address (a) concerns about requirements for
the draft and (b) concerns about technical objections?
I believe that formation of an IETF working group as suggested by
several commentators would address both issues. I have separately
suggested that via an RFC 2026 section 6.5.2 comment sent to
chair(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org on 2004-12-27. It has not yet appeared on the
"Appeals to IESG" page (Harald, if you can't find it, let me
know off-list, and I'll resend it).
If we use the ietf-languages list to discuss the these sets of issues, then
perhaps we can demonstrate the maturity of the draft and progress to BCP.
The ietf-languages list, as also noted during recent discussion,
is supposed to be for review of language-tag registrations, not
for general discussion. The language-tag reviewer has also recently
noted his displeasure with the general discussion. Again, setting
up an IETF WG with its own mailing list would address that problem
as well as the ones noted above.
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