On Tuesday, July 25, 2006 07:25:59 PM -0400 John C Klensin
<john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com> wrote:
- the responsibility to send the document to the IESG for
review
- the responsibility of the IESG to respond within a
particular time
- the right of the RFC-Editor to publish
- the right of the IESG to require inclusion of an IESG note
I agree with all but the last. See below.
Sorry; I know that's a contentious issue, and I didn't mean to imply a
position. If the IESG is going to have such a right, it needs to be
spelled out in the agreement with whoever becomes RFC-Editor. If not, not.
What it cannot do is to assume it has the right to impose those
requirements on the RFC Editor and that, if the RFC Editor
doesn't agree, the IETF's remedies extend beyond taking its
publication business elsewhere.
Whether it has this right...
Absent figuring out who or what
the term "RFC Editor" belongs to
Depends on the answer to this.
I agree that things would be simpler if we could come up with a way to do
things that didn't require figuring out the answer. Unfortunately, I'm not
convinced we can. Before I go any further, let me point out that I have no
reason to believe that ISI will act other than in good faith and in
accordance with the best interests of the Internet. However, contracts are
about what happens when someone you thought would act in good faith fails
to do so.
The problem is that the point of this process seems to be to provide a
certain amount of accountability. I'm not talking about the independent
submission stream, but about basic things like publishing documents in a
timely manner, emitting documents that look like they were written by a
competent writer instead of a six-year-old or an engineer, and being
responsive to the needs of the community. The way you provide
accountabiltiy for things like that is by writing those requirements into
the contract, and providing remedies if they are not met. For an ongoing
relationship like the one we're discussing, a key requirement is the
ability to take your business elsewhere.
Unfortunately, the instant we try to take our business elsewhere, the
question above surfaces. If we don't know who owns the term "RFC Editor",
and more importantly, the "RFC series", then there is a _huge_ burden
associated with taking our business elsewhere. We already have the problem
that people think that anything that's an RFC is an Internet Standard. Can
you imagine trying to convince someone that something is an Internet
Standard that's _not_ an RFC?
Because of that, I think we need to know the answer before the first time
we might have to whether to find another supplier. How can we possibly
make such a decision if we don't know how much it will cost?
I continue to hope and believe that, if the RFP and award
process is obviously fair, in the best interests of the Internet
community ISI will consent to the release of any rights they
might have to the "RFC Editor" terminology and materials to
whatever entity the IASA decides to designate.
So do I, to a point. I would actually be happy to see those rights clearly
in the hands of the Internet Society; in fact, I think such a thing would
probably be in the best interest of the Internet.
But at least
some of us believe that making the approval process or content
of RFCs that do not arise from IETF processes subsidiary to the
IESG would not be in the best interests of the Internet
community.
I'm not sure yet what my position is on that question; there are valid
arguments on both sides. However, I don't think this question needs to be
resolved in order to put out an RFP, because I don't think the RFP should
have that level of detail. I believe that was one of Leslie's original
points - there is no need to name a particular entity, especially when it
might be changing.
-- Jeff
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