Re: When is an idea a good idea?

Hi Spencer,

Yes, that is right. I mentioned that many time but still no much
following, this process problem affects the end users of our
protocols. IESG needs to force ADs and WGs to describe very well in
the applicabilitity section, or the use case of such draft-protocol.
How does the IESG evaluate such drafts if there are not much
explainations in the use of the examined protocol? Could we evaluate
IESG (including previous IESG) in its RFC outputs based on your
questions?, Therefore, I suggest your ideas should be presented to
IESG and IETF WGs Chairs, how they are evaluating drafts, what is
their methodology, or Is there any
methodology/idea/format/basic-questions?

Even reviewers should focus on your questions, but I don't think we
can force them as long as we are short with reviewers.

AB

On 1/28/14, Spencer Dawkins <spencerdawkins(_dot_)ietf(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> 
wrote:

Disclaimer - I'm one of the ADs who will be balloting your documents
until at least March 2015, but I'm only one of 15 ADs, and haven't
talked about this with the rest of the IESG.

The past week has brought me yet another example of an idea that could
be a good idea, but not under every possible set of conditions, being
evaluated as if we had to decide whether it was a good idea in all
cases, or a bad idea. This might sound familiar to you, but if it does,
let's not talk about that specific case.

The longer (and more painfully) we talk during Last Call, the more
details we unearth that help me to understand what document
authors/working groups are thinking, and that's good, but if it was less
painful, that would be even better.

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2026#section-3.2 describes Applicability
Statements, as distinct from Technical Specifications, and says (among
other things):

    An Applicability Statement specifies how, and under what
    circumstances, one or more TSs may be applied to support a particular
    Internet capability.

...

    An AS may describe particular methods of using a TS in a restricted
    "domain of applicability", such as Internet routers, terminal
    servers, Internet systems that interface to Ethernets, or datagram-
    based database servers.


Speaking only for myself, I don't expect Proposed Standards to be
perfect, and to work perfectly in every situation, but if a
specification doesn't describe any limits on applicability, I'm going to
be evaluating it as if it will be used on the open Internet (that's what
the "I" in "IETF" stands for).

If a draft says it's only intended to be used within an IP subnet, I'd
evaluate it differently. I might ask that the authors/working group
consider what the TTL should be set to, so that what starts out within
an IP subnet stays within an IP subnet, but (to use one actual example)
we wouldn't be arguing about whether it's OK to send 32K max-length
packets over an arbitrary Internet path at line rate without getting any
feedback about path capacity - there are probably paths where that would
work, and there are definitely paths where it would not.

If a draft says it's only intended to be used on provisioned, managed
internetwork links subject to SLA monitoring, I'd evaluate it differently.

If a draft says "this is a hack, intended for use on old hardware that
can't do $X", I'd evaluate it differently.

There are other limited-use scenarios that would make me evaluate a
draft differently.

None of this is a guaranteed pass, but it would help me a lot. It would
likely help other reviewers, too.

So, if you don't intend for your draft to be used on the global
Internet, please say so! As per
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2026#section-3.3, it's not necessary to
put an Applicability Statement in a different draft; just a section that
says (another actual example) "this has been tested using these
parameters on a lightly-loaded LAN, and it works there", that is more
helpful than a tug of war(*) about whether something is a good idea or a
bad idea in all situations, in front of a live studio audience.

Thanks to Alia Atlas for nudging me to think about this more.

Spencer

p.s. If you have feedback about what I'm thinking, I'd love for you to
share it, whether on this list, privately to me, to the 2015 Nomcom, or
to other Nomcom-eligible IETF participants when you're asking them to to
sign the recall petition ;-)

(*) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tug_of_war