Hi John,
(responding with my personal views)
On Aug 15, 2012, at 8:39 PM, John E Drake wrote:
Hannes,
Let me try a different tack:
1) Is this document intended to change the way that the IETF interacts with
other SDOs?
Nope. We always interact with other SDOs in the same way since the IETF process
does not provide options.
The intensity of the interactions and the degree of information exchange varies
over time between the different organizations (quite naturally due to the
topics different SDOs care about).
The IAB has their liaison managers for the different organizations and just
manages the liaison relationships. The actual liaison persons make sure that
the information flows. From my experience it is best if there are engineers
that participate in both organizations and use informal communication (rather
than liaison statements).
2) What is the document's marginal utility? I.e., what changes if it is
published?
Informing others how various SDOs, including the IETF, develop standards. I
believe there is value in education even though it is hard to measure: did
someone learn something new from this specific document, did they already knew
it upfront, learn it in discussions, etc.. Who knows.
3) Is there a plan of which this document is a part or is it simply a
'one-off'?
Education about what the IETF is about and what are the factors that make IETF
protocols successful is an ongoing activity.
Many of the IAB publications discuss different facets of this topic. Just pick
a recently approved IAB document, namely
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-iab-extension-recs-17. It builds on "What
Makes for a Successful Protocol" [RFC5218] and discusses the challenging topic
of how to define a protocol so that future extensions do not lead to
interoperability problems.
As you know, designing protocols is complex and requires a broad expertise. The
IAB tries to provide guidance that often falls beyond a single protocol,
working group or area. Best examples of broader guidance is RFC 3552
("Guidelines for Writing RFC Text on Security Considerations") and
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-iab-privacy-considerations-03 ("Privacy
Considerations for Internet Protocols"). Sometimes the recommendations concern
the interaction with other SDOs, such as with RFC 5704 "Uncoordinated Protocol
Development Considered Harmful".
As you can see from the examples above the guidance ranges from technical
aspects to process related advice.
The IAB, however, does not have endless resources to do everything alone (since
the IAB charter gives us a number of functions; not only liaisons and
architectural oversight). For that reason I am quite happy that there are
others, like ISOC, CDT, journalists, etc. also share their views with the rest
of the world. They use social media, blog posts, and all the great Web
technologies to reach out to the wider Internet community to raise awareness.
4) What is the relationship between this document and the mission of the
ISOC, which, as I understand it, is to promote the open development,
evolution, and use of the Internet?
The Internet Society needs to speak for themselves.
Ciao
Hannes
Thanks,
John
Sent from my iPhone
-----Original Message-----
From: Hannes Tschofenig [mailto:hannes(_dot_)tschofenig(_at_)gmx(_dot_)net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 7:33 AM
To: John E Drake
Cc: Hannes Tschofenig; Brian E Carpenter; Eliot Lear; iab(_at_)iab(_dot_)org;
ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: Affirmation of the Modern Global Standards Paradigm
Hi John,
On Aug 15, 2012, at 3:41 PM, John E Drake wrote:
JD: To what purpose? As an aside, I get the 'feel-good' aspect, but
is there anything more?
I like the term - IAB documents as 'feel-good' publications.
The IAB publishes a variety of different documents. Some of them are
formal communication interactions with other organizations and others
are documenting topics that could be of interest to the IETF community
or even beyond. These documents are not enforceable in a legal sense
(which is good).
The content of this specific document did not surprise you and, as a
regular IETF participant, it shouldn't. You look at the list of
principles and they sound familiar - they make sense (at least to most
of us, as folks noted in this discussion thread). The 'Openness', for
example, is in my view extremely important since it allows relevant
stakeholders to participate: Think about how low the barrier is to
participate in the IETF. If you believe that the process has any impact
on the quality of the specifications then the principles listed in the
document may resonate with you.
Many may consider these principles as so obvious that they are not
worthwhile to write down. Unfortunately, they are not as obvious as one
might think. There are other ways to do standardization and, as we have
seen in the discussions on this list, some would like to change the
rules of the game. I believe that this will have negative consequences
for the Internet eco-system and for the speed of innovation we had
gotten so used to.
Whether this document can prevent bad things from happening is of
course a separate story but it, at least, captures the views of a list
of organizations active in Internet standardization.
I hope that this makes sense to you.
Ciao
Hannes