Brian,
Thanks for your response. Please see inline:
On 6/26/2008 4:23 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
Lakshminath,
On 2008-06-26 23:43, Lakshminath Dondeti wrote:
On 6/25/2008 2:41 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
...
Our fundamental collective job is defined in RFC 3935:
The mission of the IETF is to produce high quality, relevant
technical and engineering documents that influence the way people
design, use, and manage the Internet in such a way as to make the
Internet work better.
That means that it is *not* our collective job to ensure that a WG
consensus survives critical review by the IETF as a whole and by
the IESG, if there's reason to believe that the IETF as a whole
doesn't agree with the WG consensus. And it's clearly the IESG's
job to ensure that the critical review and final consensus (or lack
of consensus) occur.
But, surely the WG consensus counts as part of the overall IETF
consensus process, doesn't it? Please see the example in my response to
Jari. The shepherding AD (or at least the document shepherd) has an
idea of the WG consensus as well as the IETF consensus. We cannot
simply weigh the latest opinions more than all the discussions that have
happened as part of the WG consensus.
At one level I agree. But suppose that the set of people who are
active in the SXFG7M WG are so focused on the sxfg7m protocol that
they have all missed the fact that it's extremely damaging to
normal operations of the m7gfxs protocol? And this includes the
responsible AD, who has no deep knowledge of m7gfxs? This is the sort
of problem that IETF Last Call and IESG review is intended to find,
and it may well mean that the WG consensus ends up being irrelevant
to the IETF non-consensus. (I'm not in the least suggesting that
this applies to the draft that led to the appeal that led to this
thread.)
For what it's worth, I am not talking about a specific draft or a
specific WG at this point. I am of the opinion that we are not
discussing a one-off issue.
If protocol X disrupts protocol Y, we get into very interesting
situations. It is also going to get us into a rathole that I want to avoid.
My point was this: if a WG actually missed anything substantial and that
comes out during an IETF last call, and the shepherding AD agrees, the
document gets sent back to the WG. If the shepherding AD also misses or
misjudges, any member of the IESG can send it back to the WG for
resolution. What I think is not acceptable is for the author and one or
more DISCUSS ADs to hack up the document and publish it.
If it so happens that the issue raised was considered and ruled out as a
non-issue by the WG, then the shepherding AD knows the situation
already. Strong consensus in the working group damaging a protocol that
matters to very few people (ok, that's a rathole) -- but here is where
judgment is necessary. And as you note, any of the judgment calls are
appealable.
regards,
Lakshminath
My conclusion, again, is that in the end this is the sort of
judgment call that we *expect* the IESG to make. And when we
feel they've misjudged, we appeal, and that tunes their judgment
for the future.
Brian
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