The IETF list is often a place for rants and raves. I have a concern that I
want to raise, but I also want to be constructive about it. I'm hoping my
colleagues will play ball with that.
I am really happy to see the interest and conversation that has been happening
at IETF-77 and IETF-78 regarding potential new work and topics of interest, aka
"Bar BOFs". The infusion of new work and discussions of topics of interest is a
good thing.
I want to talk about "how it is done". I have a concern. The concern is in
essence a lack of regard for people's health and time. For me, IETF-78 started
on Sunday afternoon and has proceeded until now (9:33 Thursday evening) with
seven breaks - a social event, a private social event, nights in which I have
gone to my hotel and collapsed for five or six hours, and this afternoon when I
did the same. The entire remaining time has been consumed in meetings - meals,
IETF WG and BOF meetings, receptions and plenaries, and various ad hoc
conversations. Many of these have been so-called "Bar BOFs". By the way, I am
far from alone. At IETF-77, people complained that leadership (IESG/IAB/etc)
didn't show up at their "Bar BOFs". For those people, the IETF is a far busier
meeting. When I was IETF Chair, I scheduled potty breaks, and I couldn't cross
a room to get a glass of wine or cup of coffee without being stopped several
times by someone who needed to chat with me. Our leaders are
generally happy to be helpful any way they can, but they deserve our respect
for the incredible time and work commitment that they make.
Let me explain what a Bar BOF is, and what it is not. Our formal BOFs are
scheduled with an AD, and are generally for formalizing a charter. The
assumption is that a prior ad hoc process, usually on a mailing list or via
telephone or conferencing systems has happened, and a work item has matured to
the point that we have interested people, proto-specifications or at least
problem statements, and so on.
The initiation point of that is often-but-not-always a handful of people
talking over a meal or in a bar on a topic, often having convened mere moments
before. Sketches might be drawn on napkins, and people that are hungry or
thirsty have a waiter/waitress at hand to deal with that. A Bar BOF, as such
small gatherings are called, is *not* a full-blown meeting of perhaps hundreds
of people placed at a mealtime but in a place that prevents them from eating.
It does not require powerpoint, and is not a catered event. It is not ten
minutes stolen from some other subject. Key concept: we respect each other and
each other's time, and so we meet in a place that has food and drink, and we
have an intimate conversation among people who will be interested to carry on
some work item.
Another way that conversations that lead to eventual working group formation
are initiated tends to be ad hoc meetings. These might be similarly carried out
over dinner, but they usually happen at a time that the participants have no
other plan - the key attendees are not in any other meeting and so are free, or
perhaps they planned in advance to meet Sunday afternoon or on the Saturday
following. Meetings of this type may happen at IETF meetings, but they are
planned weeks in advance, soon after the IETF agenda is finalized. If IETF
rooms are available, so be it; often, companies that want to have these
meetings provide a room of their own.
BOFs are necessary. Ad Hoc meetings happen, although they can be a pain to
include in one's schedule. Bar BOFs, the kind that happen in bars and are a
small number of co-conspirators, are part of the fabric of which the IETF is
woven. Ad Hoc meetings that jerk the secretariat around and are disrespectful
of people's biology and health are a problem.
If we're going to continue this avalanche of ad hoc meetings that we call "Bar
BOFs", I would recommend that the Secretariat provide a web page for requesting
them. The title of the web page should be "Poorly Planned Meetings" or
something like that.
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