My point was that we have a process for assessing IETF support and it's not
being used. Something quite different is being used.
I'm not so sure.
It's true that this was not put into an Internet Draft. Apart from
that, we seem to be doing the right thing:
- The IAB Chair announced the text and the intent to sign it on 1 Aug.
He asked for comments.
- The IETF Chair announced updated text on 4 Aug, based on comments received.
- The IETF Chair made a last call on 10 Aug, running through 24 Aug,
noting that three organizations are approving this text (and that one
has already). He asked for objections.
- A discussion (this) ensued, which has resulted in a great deal of
support for the signing, no objections to the document, and two
objections on process grounds.
I presume that the IETF Chair will evaluate rough consensus on or
after 24 Aug. As I see it now, consensus appears to be strongly in
favour of their signing it, with a valid process objection that has to
be addressed.
By way of addressing that, this IETF participant thinks that our
consensus process has essentially been followed. Text was publicly
posted, comments were incorporated, a last call was issued, and
responses are being considered. In the end, we seem likely to have
IETF consensus that the IAB Chair and the IETF Chair sign the
document.
The parts that are not entirely as usual are (1) that the text was
publicly posted, but not in an Internet Draft, and (2) that the
community's ability to tweak the text has been limited. That said,
both of those aspects are part of the public last call, and they have
gotten very limited objection.
Can you tell us where the above process fails in representing the
rough consensus of the IETF community, with respect to how we normally
express such consensus? Can you tell us how what we're doing here is
"quite different" to our usual process (that is, "quite" different, as
opposed to very slightly different, with the difference having been
explained and due to the requirements of external interactions)?
Barry