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Re: "IETF work is done on the mailing lists"
2012-11-28 09:19:05
On 11/27/2012 01:00 PM, Barry Leiba wrote:
This brings up a question that I have as an AD: A number of times
since I started in this position in March, documents have come to the
IESG that prompted me (or another AD) to look into the document
history for... to find that there's basically no history. We see a
string of versions posted, some with significant updates to the text,
but *no* corresponding mailing list discussion. Nothing at all. The
first we see of the document on the mailing list is a working group
last call message, which gets somewhere between zero and two responses
(which say "It's ready."), and then it's sent to the responsible AD
requesting publication. When I ask the responsible AD or the document
shepherd about that, the response is that, well, no one commented on
the list, but it was discussed in the face-to-face meetings. A look in
the minutes of a few meetings shows that it was discussed, but, of
course, the minutes show little or none of the discussion. We accept
that, and we review the document as usual, accepting the document
shepherd's writeup that says that the document has "broad consensus of
the working group." So here's my question: Does the community want us
to push back on those situations?
Please, please, please push back on those discussions.
Far too many documents are being represented as WG consensus, and then
IETF consensus, when there's nothing of the sort. This degrades the
overall quality of IETF output, confuses the community of people who use
IETF standards, and potentially does harm to the Internet by promoting
use of protocols that haven't been carefully vetted.
Simply presenting a document at a face-to-face meeting and asking people
to raise hands or hum in approval isn't sufficient. A necessary
condition for IESG consideration of a WG document should be that several
people have posted to the WG mailing list that they've read it, and that
they consider it desirable and sound.
Keith
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