--On Wednesday, July 22, 2015 11:55 -0400 Eric Burger
<eburger(_at_)standardstrack(_dot_)com> wrote:
I sort of like this better. The problem we have today was
identified by Dave Cridland: it is already so hard to charter
a work group, people give up and leave. You need an active
mail list, an active BOF, and active BOF, run through the Dave
Crocker and jck filter, and finally get chartered. Easily a
year if not more.
I can't speak for Dave (and wouldn't if I could) but, since you
called me out more or less by name... I would be quite
enthused about setting up WGs on the basis of AD judgment,
without BOFs or other heavyweight processes, if the following
principles were agreed to and treated as conditions:
(1) We did not hesitate to shut them down if they were
not productive. I don't want a rigid rule because I
think we all know that, in practice, some WGs move at a
different pace than others, but it is important that we
be able to recognize "not meeting expectations and
making reasonable progress" and act on it. In the last
several years, I believe we have one successful example
of doing so and lots of examples to the contrary. So,
whether we are serious at that or not is still
uncertain.
(2) There be evidence of enough committed people to do
the work. We cannot collect signatures in blood or
otherwise enforce promises, but there must be more than
an enthusiastic individual, company, or organization or
two.
(3) The initial list of proposed or likely participants
or supporters must be sufficiently diverse to show broad
community interest. That is key to meaningful community
consensus and even more important if there is
involvement by one or more IESG members or the companies
with which they are associated in the work.
(4) The IESG and the community have the be firmly behind
the idea that "a WG produced this" is not a guarantee of
either standardization or publication if the work turns
out to be below the quality standards of the IETF or the
RFC Editor. We've seen a lot of "we spent a lot of time
on this in a WG and therefore it is entitled to approval
even if we will let the community tweak it a bit". That
is, IMO, a problem even with carefully designed and
vetted WGs; it could be much worse if attached to a
lightweight WG setup process.
I'd like to see WG-forming BOFs become a thing of the past
except when they are actually needed for problem definition,
workplan design, or similar activities. It would be, IMO, much
more productive to allocate meeting time to a WG to see if it
can actually get something useful done than to spend the same
time discussing and theorizing about whether getting something
useful done is likely or certain.
Especially because I think (2) and (3) can only be realized by
being sure the IESG is on board with the principles and then
exercising discretion and good judgment and because the IESG has
to be signed up to make either (1) or (4) work, I don't think
this is feasible unless the IESG is committed to it and willing
to be held accountable if they fail to come through on those
principles.
Even with that heavyweight process, we manage to take on work
that probably belongs elsewhere.
And _that_ is my one exception. I'm concerned about the IETF
resenting and/or complaining bitterly when some other body takes
on work that we believe belongs to us. I'm even more concerned
when we take on work that probably belongs elsewhere, especially
when there is evidence of forum-shopping. So I think that, when
those issues exist, they do need to be aired before WG creation.
However, I think that review and any discussions that are needed
can be carried out very much more efficiently and with a higher
success rate than we have been doing/using.
I like the I-D approach. Provide the resources to get a proto
WG going, let it run for six months, and see if it is getting
any traction.
Yes. See above and note that I don't know that "six months" is
the right number for every group. However, if it isn't, we
ought to be able to figure it out and set a more appropriate
topic at startup time or grant one extension and then stop.
I think that will let people relax that don't want to see
the IETF take on work that no one is interested in - if no one
is really interested in the work, it will die in 6 months.
Conversely, if something that an AD or two thought would not
be interesting takes off in that initial six months, I'm
sure they will claim parentage :-)
Other thoughts?
Because it might prove illuminating, at least about a prior
round of this type of conversation but with a slightly different
focus, I recommend two long-expired I-Ds to anyone interested in
this topic:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-huston-ietf-pact/ and
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-klensin-overload/
--john