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Re: I-D Action: draft-crocker-id-adoption-02.txt

2013-06-02 18:27:12
Hi,

My main positive comment is that it's a good idea to document guidelines
in this area, and that (viewed as guidelines) I largely agree with
the draft.

My main negative comment is that although the draft says it's not a
formal process document, its language in many places belies that.
For example:

2. Adoption Process


2.1. Formal Steps


   To adopt a new working group document, the chairs need to:

would be better phrased as:

 2. Adoption Guidelines

 2.1. Typical Steps

    To adopt a new working group document, the chairs often:

I'd suggest a careful pass through the text, removing instances
of words like "process", "formal" and "need", and emphasising words
like "guideline" and "typical" and "might".

Now some minor comments:

   The convention for
   identifying an I-D formally under the ownership of a working group is
   by the inclusion of "ietf" in the second field of the I-D filename
   and the working group name in the third field,

It's a useful convention but *not* a requirement afaik.

   Note
   that from time to time a working group will form a design team to
   produce the first version of a working group draft.

I think that's slightly wrong. A design team draft is *not*
automatically a WG draft. I think this is more accurate:

   Note
   that from time to time a working group will form a design team to
   produce the first version of a document that may be adopted as
   a working group draft.

That's an important difference - we've seen cases where design teams
falsely believed that they had been delegated authority by the WG.

     *  Is there strong working group support for the draft?

I think that's going a bit far. Actually a WG might adopt
a draft because there is support for the *topic* but not for
the details of the draft as it stands. Indeed, one objective of
adopting a draft is so that the WG as a whole obtains control
of the contents - so that they can change it.

      *  What is the position of the working group chairs, concerning
         the draft?

            [[editor note: I am not sure this is relevant.  Indeed is
            might be specifically not relevant.  /a]]

Actually I'd go the other way: the WG chairs' job at that point is to
judge the WG's opinion of the draft, not their own opinion. (At least
once, as a WG chair, I had to declare adoption of a draft to which
both I and my co-chair were strongly opposed.)

5.1. Individual I-Ds Under WG Care
...

OK, but there are in fact four possible outcomes for such a draft

1. As you describe;
2. The document proceeds as an individual submission to the IESG
   without continued WG discussion;
3. The document proceeds as an Independent Submission to the RFC Editor;
4. The document is abandoned.

Regards
   Brian

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