At 03:19 09-10-2009, Stephen Kent wrote:
As ads for financial products remind us "Past performance is not a
guarantee of future performance." Since we have been making changes
in IETF functions over time, including the RFC Editor function, I
don't think it is unreasonable to formalize this aspect of the
relationship between the IESG and the RFC Editor, before a problem arises.
By over-formalizing the procedures, the IETF will end up with a rigid process.
I believe that most folks recognize that the public, in general,
does not distinguish between RFCs that are the product of IETF WGs,
individual submissions, independent submissions, etc. I think the
IESG has a legitimate role in ensuring that RFCs that are not the
product of WGs are appropriate labelled, and inclusion of an IESG
note is a reasonable way to do that.
Section 1.1 of the draft mentions that:
"The IESG may provide an IESG note to an Independent Submission or
IRTF Stream document to explain the specific relationship, if any, to
IETF work."
That's a "may". From what you said, I deduce that you would prefer
that line to say:
The IESG will provide an IESG note to an Independent Submission ...
The reasons for the IESG Note are mentioned in Section 3. None of
them are about a label saying that the RFC is not a product of a WG.
When the RFC series was first established, the need for archival,
searchable, open publication of Internet-related documents was a
good argument for the autonomy of the RFC Editor function. Moreover,
the RFC Editor function pre-dates the existence of the IETF and the
IESG, by many years. But, times change. The availability of search
engines like Google make it possible for essentially anyone to
publish material that is widely accessible, relatively easy to find,
and more or less archival. Also, the vast majority of the RFCs
published for many years are documents approved by the IESG. Thus it
seems reasonable to revisit the degree of autonomy the RFC Editor
enjoys relative to the IESG. The current proposal does not change
the relationship very much in practice, but I understand that it is
an important issue in principle, and the IETF membership has debated
it in this context, extensively.
An open source advocate once suggested to me that I could use
Geocities to publish material. That site is closing this
month. There are differences between publishing something on your
web site and publishing a RFC. The latter does not require search
engine optimization for wide dissemination. A RFC has intrinsic
qualities because of the way it is produced. There are some RFCs
with IESG notes, such as RFC 4144, which I read as good advice.
The current proposal undermines the independence of the RFC Editor
(ISE in practice). It changes the relationship from one where the
various parties should work together and come to an agreement to a
tussle between the RFC Editor and the IESG. I don't think that an
appeal is a good idea. I didn't object to it as the IESG folks may
feel better if they had that mechanism. However, I do object to
making the outcome mandatory.
At 00:18 09-10-2009, Dave CROCKER wrote:
The IESG is demanding a change. The IESG has failed to achieve
community rough
consensus for that change, but the IESG is still claiming a mandate
for change.
There doesn't seem to be a concern about achieving rough community
consensus in this case as the IESG really wants the change.
Regards,
-sm
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