For which Working Groups does the current system work?
It is completely failing for every one that I have been involved in. The
distinction between DRAFT standard and Internet STANDARD seems completely
arbitrary as far as I can see.
We might as well replace the final step of the process with throwing darts
at a board for all the good it does.
It is not true that there is no way to reverse the change. If we change the
documents to reflect current practice and it turns out to be a bad idea, the
change can be reversed through exactly the same process by which it was
originally proposed.
Now that is obviously not going to happen as the three step process has been
a total failure. But that is entirely due to the merits and has nothing to
do with the lack of a process for reversal.
As for the STD numbers, we have to either get rid of them completely or give
them another acronym. Nobody wants to refer to their work product by an
abbreviation for Sexually Transmitted Disease. I am totally serious about
this.
As a practical matter, protocols are either referred to by name or by RFC
number. I cannot see any context in which I would use the STD number.
On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 3:47 PM, John C Klensin <john-ietf(_at_)jck(_dot_)com>
wrote:
--On Tuesday, October 26, 2010 14:27 -0400 Ross Callon
<rcallon(_at_)juniper(_dot_)net> wrote:
This is where I disagree with you. The simple change that Russ
has proposed is not what is taking away from discussion of the
actual barriers. What is taking attention away from discussion
of the actual barriers is the lengthy debate about Russ's
proposed change.
Ross, I can't speak for Dave or anyone else, but I think part of
the disagreement here is that some of us don't see this as a
"simple change". From my point of view, it is quite drastic
because it eliminates a three stage model for those protocols
and groups for which it works, doesn't provide a way to undo the
change if it turns out to be a bad idea, and has not been
demonstrated (empirically or logically) to have any effect on
the number of documents that advance from Stage 1 to Stage 2.
As Dave points out, our history has been that the perception
that it is hard to get to Draft (or that many documents stop at
Proposed) has led to our making it hard to get to Proposed.
There is no evidence that this change would have any effect on
that pattern; it might even make it worse by eliminating the
"extra chance to get it right".
Worse, it seems to combine several different measures, including:
(1) Dropping Internet Standard and Renaming Draft to
Internet Standard. But it doesn't quite do that because
it also drops the requirements for identification of
deployment and usefulness that go with Internet
Standard, substituting only the "two independent
interoperable" implementations of Draft.
(2) Changing the Normative Reference rules by dropping
them, with no consideration of side effects.
(3) Posing an alternative between keeping STD numbers as
they now exist and dropping them entirely, without
considering a third path, which has been proposed
several times: assigning those numbers at Proposed (or
even somewhat earlier). That possibility has apparently
been dismissed as addressing a different problem but the
discussion of STD numbers remains in the document.
A small and simple change would either modularize these and
discuss and make them one at a time or would explain why they
are linked.
Russ's proposed change is a small step in the right direction.
And we disagree both about whether it is a small step and
whether it is in the right direction.
...
In my opinion the fact that this very simple and
straightforward change draws such heavy debate is a
disincentive to anyone who would propose other additional
changes.
A different way to look at this would be to suggest that the way
this document has been handled -- disallowing both smaller, more
modular, and more incremental changes and more sweeping ones
that might have higher payoff in the process-- is a disincentive
to any serious thinking about what problems we are trying to
solve and how particular approaches might solve them.
john
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