Date: Thu, 08 Dec 1994 13:07:04 -0800
From: Peter Williams <williams(_at_)atlas(_dot_)arc(_dot_)nasa(_dot_)gov>
The one line of feedback I got from those who attended the 3.5 minute
long meeting was that in that space of time, the issue of MIME-PEM
was proposed, argued, voted, and ratified, before anyone knew what
the hell was happening. The meeting then adjourned before the chairs
stopped rattling.
If this is true, its shameful for a standard's and engineering task
force and the consensual process promoted by the IETF.
Are there any other versions of the story?
The meeting actually lasted about 30 minutes. The consensus of the room
at the time was that there were no significant problems with the draft,
and no reasons not to move it forward.
The question of whether or not MIME-PEM was replacing 822 PEM was
raised; the answer was that it was not; it was merely put on the
standards track as a *proposed* standard, along side with 822 PEM. The
expectation was that the based on the experience of the two proposals, a
decision could be made when it was time to move either (or both)
documents to draft standard status.
At this IETF, I've noticed a general desire for drafts to get pushed to
proposed standard status as soon as possible. This apparently has been
to counteract a general tendency for wg's to have higher standards than
is really necessary for documents to be advanced to proposed standard
status. (Protocols *can* be changed and revised after being advanced to
proposed; that's what implementation experience is for.)
My current understanding of the issue as a mailing list member is that
the measurement of consensus required to move the particular suite of
technical work from the WG into the standards process has been just
stage-managed. This brings the IETF consensus process into significant
disrepute and shows complete and actual disregard for the mailing list
members and their contributions.
The next steps after this meeting is for the chair pro-tem to report to
the chair of the PEM wg. After this, there still remains for the chair
of the wg to issue a last call on the mailing list, and for the chair of
the wg to formally request to the Security Area director that the
document be advanced up to the IESG for approval; at the same time that
the document goes up to the IESG, a last call will be issued on the
general ietf list.
As you can see, there is still ample time for members of the mailing
list to bring up any technical issues that they might have.
So, *do* you actually have any legitimate issues to be raised regarding
the PEM-MIME document? If you do, please raise them now. This is the
time!!!
- Ted