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Re: I-D ACTION:draft-housley-iesg-rfc3932bis-10.txt

2009-10-13 04:12:59
Hi Steve,
At 12:18 12-10-2009, Stephen Kent wrote:
When the site closed, do you believe that all of the material published there will become inaccessible, not archived anywhere? I doubt that.

I am not sure whether all the material will be available at archive.org or other archiving sites. If the material is archived on one site only, there's a risk of "too big to fail". I can change the material I publish. That's not always good if the material is to be used as a reference (immutability). It took me some time to understand that sometimes we need access to an old version of a specification, and not the latest one, even if that version contains mistakes. That's part of the intrinsic qualities I mentioned in my earlier message.

The status quo does not mandate that the RFC Editor and the IESG agree; it allows the RFC Editor to make a unilateral decision to ignore an IESG note. So, I don't agree with the second part of your statement above. I do agree that the change diminishes the independence of the RFC Editor.

You are trying to persuade me to change my stance while I am trying to persuade you to change yours. It is in essence a dialogue. If one of us is the authority which makes the decision, that person can make an unilateral decision and ignore the other person's opinion. By invoking that authority, the person causes a break down of the dialogue. When two parties are bound to work together on a regular basis, that can result in an uncomfortable situation. Now, if we have to add an appeal (it's not being made in an individual capacity) to that, we can end up with a larger issue instead of a difference of perspectives between an individual and a body.

Let's step away from the draft being discussed for a few minutes and ponder on whether either of us is being unreasonable. Now, if we cannot figure out the answer, let's ask (figuratively) someone else for advice. We have the choice of accepting the advice even though we are right or seeking an advice that will suite us.

At 10:36 08-10-2009, John C Klensin wrote:
members believe the topic is important enough.   Shifting toward
a model in which the IESG can force the IAB into a review and
then force the ISE to accept an IAB decision is just not
demonstrated to be necessary... necessary enough to justify
reopening 4844 and 4846

I agree with John there[1].  Quoting Section 5 of RFC 4846:

  "If the IESG, after completing its review, identifies issues,
   it may recommend explanatory or qualifying text for the
   RFC Editor to include in the document if it is published."

  "As with the IESG review itself, the IAB's opinion, if any,
   will be advisory."

At 12:24 10-10-2009, Ned Freed wrote:
As yes, the old "people can't read" argument. The problem I have with this
argument is people who can't manage to comprehend the line at the top of a
specification that says "this does not specify a standard of any kind" are
highly unlikely to be able to assess the technical content of the document with
any degree of accuracy either.

That's a good point.

And I somehow don't think anyone would be particularly pleased by dumbing our
specifications down to the first grade level, assuming that's even possible.

We may be getting there if we read an IESG Note as parental guidance.

Regards,
-sm

1. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg58967.html
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