Hi Alia,
On 27/12/2014 08:59, Alia Atlas wrote:
Hi Brian,
On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 2:40 PM, Brian E Carpenter <
brian(_dot_)e(_dot_)carpenter(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
On 27/12/2014 06:46, Alia Atlas wrote: ...
I'm a little bit surprised that the RTG area load has gone up
like this, and so quickly. Is it the various SDN things that
are pushing this, or is it
that the RTG area currently has the most enthusiasm for YANG
work?
It's a mixture of things combined with RTG already being at the
very top edge of workload. In RTG we have/will have about 21
active WGs; if we add a third routing AD, then RTG will absorb 3
WGs from INT. Granted that one is not active and may be merged
in, we are still looking at about 23 WGs for RTG with a more
average load being about 8 WGs/AD.
So let's be frank about this. Today (excluding the General Area AD
with his crippling load of 1 WG) we have 129 WGs for 14 Ads,
which is 9.2 WGs/AD. That is clearly too many, so should there be
a target ratio and a plan for reaching it?
No, as you well know, it depends on the size and business of the
WGs, the management load, etc., as well as the number. Clearly we
don't want to not create new WGs when appropriate nor to discourage
existing useful work.
Of course, an average is only an average, but the point is: we've
had about 125 WGs for at least ten years now, and we've had
over-burdened ADs for all that time. That seems to be a fundamental
problem, regardless of the sort of adjustments the IESG is currently
proposing.
There are two words in your second sentence above implying a value
judgment: "appropriate" and "useful". Unfortunately, as far as I can
tell, the only way to truly manage the IESG workload is by raising
the bar for "appropriate" and "useful". (The same applies to
the bar for a WG to adopt a particular work item.)
This is a question of balancing load and there is a surge of
YANG-related work which does require more focused management. Is it
better to have 2 ADs at 100%-120% and others with less load when the
size of the IESG would be otherwise reduced. Are you suggesting
that suggesting another routing AD to take load from RTG and INT is a
bad idea compared to dropping the IESG to 14 & eventually 13?
No, I was specifically trying to avoid being specific. I think we have a
general long-term problem.
It's entirely appropriate for the IESG to propose workload re-balancing
to deal with the current workload. I may have some quibbles, but it's the
IESG's decision.
Are you simply concerned with the dynamics of how many ADs have the
various perspectives on the IESG?
Obviously, we are looking for feedback and opinions and ideas. Do
you have other well thought out suggestions?
In terms of the long-term problem, unless I am mistaken, neither the IESG
nor the community has ever said much about how to make the judgment calls
that new work is useful and appropriate for the IETF. We've got a very
good document to help BOF proponents (RFC 5434) but I don't think we've
ever tackled the next bit: deciding whether this work should be chartered?
One result of that is that proponents who have what they think is a
successful BOF are sometimes very puzzled and frustrated by their
failure to form a WG. Another result is that it's a bit harder for
the IESG to say "no" than it would be if the decision criteria were
a bit more transparent. A third aspect is that every new IESG member
has to discover for herself how this vital bit of the process works
on the inside.
I think my suggestion is that to have any serious hope of controlling
the workload *in the long term*, we need to have something (it could be
an IESG statement, it could be an RFC) the stakes out a position on
what it means for a WG or work item to be judged appropriate and useful.
Regards
Brian