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Why the Straw Poll

2013-12-11 19:10:14

Let me try and answer what I think is your central issue here which is: why are 
we spending any time on this topic. 

We have heard from a significant number of people that they think it is 
important for WebRTC devices and applicaitons to be able to know that video 
will work between devices. It was the number one requested item when speaking 
to the various developers with products demonstrated at WebRTC Expo and a 
significant issue on this email list. It is one of the several topics the 
chairs are driving forward. We plan to continue to do try to drive it to 
resolution. Note resolution includes consensus for no MTI. 

However, we perfectly well understand that you, or others, may not want to 
spend time on the video MTI issue. Feel free to ignore the email threads if you 
believe the outcome is inevitable and put your time into some of the other 
things we are also driving forward. 

Cullen in my co-chair role (and I'm not speaking for my co-chairs but I am 
pretty sure they also want to drive this issue to resolution) 


On Dec 9, 2013, at 4:32 PM, Matthew Kaufman (SKYPE) 
<matthew(_dot_)kaufman(_at_)skype(_dot_)net> wrote:

I believe we are way off the acceptable process track here.
 
First, there was a discussion and a call for rough consensus at the last IETF 
in-person meeting. That call was not continued on the list, instead a lack of 
consensus was declared at the meeting.
 
Next, there was a proposal from the chairs to vote in a particular way, and a 
call for options on which to vote. It was claimed at that time that after the 
list was compiled, the act of taking such a vote would be taken to a 
consensus call. That never happened.
 
Instead the chairs are now conducting a “straw poll” of their own design, 
clearly in an effort to circumvent some very specific objections to the 
proposed instant-runoff vote with restricted participation. But again, 
instead of attempting to reach WG consensus for conducting such a poll, it 
has simply been foisted upon us.
 
I have not seen ANY replies to the message “Next Steps in Video Codec 
Selection Process” that indicate working group consensus of ANY KIND for 
conducting a poll in this format at this time or to follow the subsequent 
steps described in that message.
 
I am requesting that the chairs immediately suspend the “Straw Poll” 
described below until such time as there is Working Group consensus to spend 
the Working Group’s time and energy conducting the poll and/or to continue 
with the subsequent steps called out in “Next Steps in Video Codec Selection 
Process” at http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb/current/msg10448.html