Two concerns.
1) As the chair of a WG that many will consider to be a prime example of
OBE, I am a bit worried about the "MUST NOT publish" statements.
A traditional antidote to long-running WGs has been to kill them and
tell the editors "if you really want to finish up, you can always do
individual submission" - and individual submission has no barrier to
publishing PS or Experimental for OBE technologies - the traditional
mantras being "this is an experiment to see if interest revives" or
"this PS is replacing another, even more OBE PS".
I wouldn't want to put a WG into a situation where its work items get
"better" treatment if the WG is shut down and items progressed without
WG review than it does if the WG remains active.
2) For completeness, I'm also quite puzzled as to why the IESG statement
does not contain the words "If the IESG determines that a WG is OBE, the
IESG will shut down the working group" at the end of section 2. Even if
that happens after the WG submits documents to the IESG, so that the
IESG has to follow the advice in section 3, there seems little reason to
let it hang around.
A logical reason might be that the IESG doesn't want to take on the
excess heat generated by declaring a WG to be OBE and closing it - but
in that case, it can never invoke the procedure in section 3, since the
WG hasn't been declared OBE (unless the OBE declaration is done in
secret, which would be very un-IETFish).
If OBE => closed, the handling should become simpler.
Harald
The IESG wrote:
The IESG is considering publication of the attached IESG Statement on
IETF activities that are overtaken by events (OBE). Please review and
comment.
The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org mailing lists by 2009-02-11. Exceptionally,
comments may be sent to iesg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org instead.
The IESG
==========
1. Introduction
IETF activities can be overtaken by events (OBE). For example, assume
that a Working Group is chartered to address a particular problem. While
the working group is developing its solution to the problem, one of the
following events occur:
- unrelated technologies evolve, causing the problem to cease to exist
- unrelated technologies evolve, significantly decreasing the magnitude
of the problem
In these cases, the WG is OBE. Its output no longer merits the
investment that it requires. Therefore, the WG should be rechartered or
terminated.
A WG can also be OBE if the community agrees that it should never have
been chartered for any of the following reasons:
- it addresses an ill-defined problem
- it addresses a non-problem
- it address a problem to which all solutions are worse than the problem
This memo describes several measures that ADs can take to prevent WGs
from becoming OBE. It also describes several measures that can be taken
in the unhappy event that the IESG is presented with the output of a WG
that has been OBE.
2. Preventative Measures
2.1 Prudent Chartering
Avoid charters that run longer than one or two years. When faced with
multi-year efforts, break the task into smaller pieces that can be
achieved in one-or-two year increments.
2.2 Frequent Charter Review
Use re-chartering exercises to re-evaluate the problem that a WG is
addressing. Do not recharter a WG to work on a problem that is OBE.
3. IESG Actions
The worst outcome for a WG that is OBE is for that WG to continue its
work and send its output to the IESG for publication. When that happens,
the IESG must choose among the following options:
- publish with the status proposed by the WG
- negotiate the document status with the WG and then publish
- reject the document.
If the IESG publishes the document unchanged, it may adversely impact
the overall quality of the RFC series. If it rejects the document, it
violates its charter with the WG.
The IESG MUST NOT publish the output of WG that has been OBE as PS, BCP
or EXPERIMENTAL. Publishing under those headers would imply that the
IETF proposes deployment of those solutions/experiments, which it
clearly does not.
The IESG MAY publish the output of a WG that has been OBE as
INFORMATIONAL or HISTORIC. It should add an IESG note stating that the
problem addressed by the document has been OBE.
The IESG MUST NOT reject a document simply because it has been OBE. It
must consider publication as INFORMATIONAL or HISTORIC.
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