--On Friday, 24 March, 2006 16:28 -0600 Scott W Brim
<sbrim(_at_)cisco(_dot_)com> wrote:
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 05:00:07AM -0500, John C Klensin
allegedly wrote:
There are two strategies that make more sense and have more
chance of success. One is precisely what 4084 attempted to
do: lay out categories and boundaries that, if adopted, make
...
Either approach requires serious work and people on the IAB
who are interested, willing, and have the skills to do it.
I can't speak for the current IAB at all but, if the sort of
output Tony and I are talking about is wanted, then people
need to tell the Nomcom(s) that the ability and willingness
to generate it should be an important candidate selection
criterion.
These are great, John, but as you say, both approaches require
serious work -- both before and after publication. In fact
spreading an idea can take much more work, over a longer time,
than agreeing on it, writing it up, and implementing it in the
first place.
Of course. The 4084 effort was just a first step. As has
recently been pointed out to me, it may have been a first step
that lost focus by digging down into the interests and issues of
some Internet-consumer communities more than others, thereby
neither maintaining a consistent high-level view nor clearly
focusing in on an area or two. That said, if I had understood
that focus problem at the time (and I understood it enough to be
nervous, but not enough to get articulate about it), I would not
have done anything differently because it seemed clear that
there wasn't sufficient community interest to cope with a
half-dozen documents, rather than one.
But it, or even producing a revision or a few updates that focus
better on specific communities and clusters of needs, are fairly
easy: just as with 4084, someone can sit down and write, round
up a handful of people to comment, and then write some more.
The harder part requires people to stand up and call attention
to the statements. That is where the analogy to RFC 1984
applies -- IAB and IESG statements carry far more weight than a
random BCP and can be an important tool in focusing interest on
a subject where policy or commercial interests become
problematic for the Internet.
A healthy Internet requires effort on three fronts: innovation
to start with, deployment (not just of new ideas, but of what
we have already to lesser developed areas), and finally trying
to get our principles, conceptual framework, and attitudes
accepted elsewhere. The first is the usual focus of IETF WGs.
These days the third is increasingly important. In all cases
it's not enough to launch something -- it needs to be nursed
and championed for a long time after its birth.
As Scott correctly points out, documents such as 4084, or even
1948, isn't all there is to do either. But, if the decision of
the IETF community is that it is more important to spend energy
exclusively on low-level technical issues or on administrative
and procedural navel-gazing, then we should keep our
expectations about leverage on this type of issues very low.
The IAB's primary orientation should be toward breadth, not
depth. Individual members can focus in particular areas but
the IAB as a whole needs to cover a great deal of material on
all three of these fronts. Doing a good job on all three
"legs of the stool" takes hundreds of people. We non-IABers
can generate the sort of thing you're talking about as well as
the IAB, and we should. We should use the IAB as a focal
point, lookouts, facilitators, instigators, conveners, as well
as as individuals for their expertise and dedication. I think
these capabilities are at least as important as being able to
write up results of deliberation. We should take as least as
much responsibility for doing the grunt work, including coming
up with innovative ideas, writing documents like those you
describe, and making sure results happen in the real world, as
we expect IAB members to.
I think we agree. I drew the effort that produced 4084
together after hearing that it was needed from too many people
who wouldn't (or didn't feel that they could) do so themselves.
So, turning Scott's discussion above around -- what are the rest
of you doing?
See you in Montreal.
I hope to see enough action on this, including some drafts and
some expression of interest from our "leadership", long enough
before Montreal that focused discussion and some conclusions
there become possible. Perhaps that is a silly hope but if not
now, when?
john
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