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Re: [IAOC] xml2rfc and legal services RFPs

2011-02-21 15:19:30
For what it's worth,

I agree that when you're talking to the community about RFPs, it's great if that doesn't turn into a wordsmithing exercise on the ietf mailing list,

And I agree that providing a list of things that lawyers have already done for us is a very reasonable basis for an RFP about what we expect lawyers to do for us,

But I do think posting draft text does allow you to say "and the community saw this" if you guys get any pushback at all...

Thanks,

Spencer

Bob,

On 2011-02-22 08:23, Bob Hinden wrote:
John,

Support for the xml2rfc tool was discussed on the IETF mail
list when Marshall Rose indicated he could no longer support
the tool.  Several people volunteered to maintain the tool,
and they recommended the it be rewritten.  That
recommendation plus the realization that this tool had become
critical to IETF operations resulted in the IAOC deciding to
issue a public RFP for a rewrite.

The Statement of Work in the xml2rfc RFP was reviewed and
modified by the people on the tool-development list.  You can
read the discussion at:

http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/tools-development/current/maillist.html

There was an active discussion that resulted in many changes
from what was first proposed.  While this wasn't the whole
community I think it a good representation of the people who
are interested in the xml2rfc tool.  I will send you the list
members off line.  Also, we will use a subset of this group
to review the bids.

I think the tools development list was a good venue for the
detailed discussion. Was the process mentioned on tools-discuss
too? (I dropped off that one a while back, due to lack of
cycles, but it does seems the obvious place, not to mention the
xml2rfc list, where I don't recall it being mentioned).


The legal services RFP was developed inside the IAOC/Trust.
To be honest, I didn't see very much value in doing a
community review for this.  We will consider it in the
future.  I do note that this work was previously done without
a public RFP (dating back to when Wilmer-Hale was providing
the service) so I think this is a better process than what
was used earlier.

In the future, we will strive to give more notice to the
community on planned RFPs.

I think that is appropriate, given the comments in BCP 101
about transparency. But I agree that for legal services, our
community doesn't particularly have the skills to wordsmith
an RFP.

  Brian



Bob

p.s. I will forward your specific comments to tools-discuss.


On Feb 19, 2011, at 8:49 AM, John C Klensin wrote:

Hi.

This is not an attempt to derail either of these RFPs, nor
is it a formal appeal (request for review).  However, these
two RFPs raise an issue that may be worth some
consideration.

The clear intent of the discussions leading up to RFC 4071/
BCP 101, and some of text in that document, was that the
IASA was to act with maximum transparency to the community
and openness to community comment.   It is especially
important that substantive decisions be open for community
review and discussion before they are made because,
especially for those that are eventually represented by
contracts, there is no mechanism for review later.

IASA has recently issued two RFPs -- for legal services and
for a reprogrammed version of xml2rfc -- with no advance
indication to the community (at least that I can find) that
they were coming or opportunity for the community to review
draft provisions.  The clear expectation is that proposals
will be submitted (on a fairly short timeframe) and that
the IAD and IAOC will do whatever they do to evaluate the
proposals and establish contracts.   I don't know whether
that is harmful in these particular cases, but I don't
believe it is how the community had intended that things be
done.

FWIW, community discussion might have improved at least the
 XML2RFC one -- either the details of the RFP or community
confidence that it addresses/includes the right
specifications. For example, of the very large number of
extensions or additions that have bee requested over the
years, the RFP selects two (explicit line breaks in titles)
and alternate anchors for citations/references) but ignores
the others.   I know that the ability to easily index and
cross-reference items in bulleted lists, to easily generate
numbers for ABNF productions (rules) and build an index of
productions, to have indexing reflect section (and other
subdivision) numbers rather than page numbers (as various
RFC style guides have required for years and that becomes
particularly important as people contemplate non-paginated
output formats), the ability to properly reference books
and journal articles without resorting to odd tricks
involving seriesInfo, and better handling of widows and
orphans (especially with regard to section title-text and
lists with undented headings top my personal list, but
there are certainly others.

In addition, one of the two extensions that was specified
involves the addition of a new format-specific directive
that is exclusive to xml2rfc, not the DTD/Schema, thereby
making equivalent processing by other, XML-standard,
processors problematic and violating the fundamental
principle that generic markup does not specify formatting.
Perhaps community members might have been able to propose
design models that are more friendly to XML principles and
other tools (even I can think of one or two).

The two extensions that were chosen may be the most
important ones, and there may be a reason why two
extensions were chosen rather than one or five.  But it
seems to me that the community, and perhaps even the text
of the RFP and the proposals that will arrive in response,
would have benefited from some opportunity for review and
discussion.

Can we at least agree to more openness about draft RFP
contents in the future?  Or get an explanation from the
IAOC as to why the procedural model now seems to include
issuance of RFPs without any opportunity for community
review of their substantive provisions?

thanks, john





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