Re: [Congress] Éric Vyncke's Block on charter-ietf-congress-00-00: (with BLOCK and COMMENT)

[Reese Enghardt <[e-mail]>]

Hi Éric, Zahed,

Thanks for the comments! Please see inline:


On 3/9/23 06:04, Zaheduzzaman Sarker wrote:
> *From:*Zaheduzzaman Sarker <[e-mail]>
>> *Date:*Thursday, 9 March 2023 at 14:42
>> *To:*Eric Vyncke <[e-mail]>, The IESG <[e-mail]>
>> *Cc:*"[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>, 
>> "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>
>> *Subject:*Re: Éric Vyncke's Block on charter-ietf-congress-00-00: 
>> (with BLOCK and COMMENT)
>> On 2023-03-09, 14:32, "Eric Vyncke (evyncke)" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> BLOCK:
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Indeed, the world has changed since TCP is no more *the* protocol, so 
>> this work
>> is welcome.
>>
>> I think that this text needs a rewrite:
>> `However, if the working group has
>> adopted further work in accordance with the guidelines above, it can 
>> recharter,
>> add milestones for them, and continue until that work is complete.`
>>
>> Isn't the above putting the cart before the horses ? I.e., why not 
>> doing the
>> usual process of rechartering *before* adopting an IETF draft ? (this 
>> of course
>> does not prevent the WG to work/discuss an individual draft)
>>
>> The intention here is allow the WG to be closed and not create the 
>> expectation that CONGESS is an everlasting WG for congestion control 
>> algorithm in IETF. Of course, the WG will adopt items that falls into 
>> the charter and exists until those are completely delivered for 
>> publication (or dropped for some reasons). I start to think that we 
>> can just remove the whole last sentence (starting form – However,) . 
>> Will that help?
>>
>> EV> if the sentence is removed, then I think it is cleaner.
>>
>> OK.
>>
I am fine with removing that sentence.


>>
>>
>> Another point is about what will be the deliverables of this WG ? The 
>> current
>> charter appears to be more suited for a directorate (doing reviews of WG
>> documents) than for a WG (publishing documents).
>>
>> There is a proposed milestone: deliver 5033bis to IESG. Is that not 
>> good enough?
>>
>> EV> honestly, it is not obvious when reading the charter... May I 
>> suggest to rewrite the following text in a more assertive way ?
>>
>> OLD TEXT
>>
>> Accordingly, CONGRESS is chartered to conduct a review of RFC 5033 and to
>> consider a revision that relaxes requirements to encourage more 
>> experiments in
>> the IRTF/IETF.
>>
>> NEW TEXT
>>
>> CONGRESS is chartered to publish a revision of RFC 5033. The WG should
>> consider a revision that relaxes....
>>
>> This is fine with me.
>>
>> EV> plus one paragraph in the charter for the work item ?
>>
>> Not sure we need that.
>>
>> We already have
>>
>> “Since RFC 5033 <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5033/> was 
>> published, many of these conditions have changed. Proponents
>> often have the opportunity to test and deploy at scale without IETF 
>> review. The
>> set of protocols using these algorithms has spread beyond TCP and SCTP to
>> include DCCP, QUIC, and beyond. There is more interest in specialized 
>> use cases
>> such as data centers and real-time protocols. Finally, the community 
>> has gained
>> much more experience with indications of congestion beyond packet loss.
>>
>> ”
>>
The rephrased text sounds good to me.

I don't think we need another paragraph, as the charter already says 
that and why 5033 needs to be updated, and then with the updated text, 
it'll say even more clearly that the WG is going to do it.


>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> COMMENT:
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> One comment about `empirical evidence of safety` as safety is rather 
>> vague (or
>> do you mean information security or network stability ?).
>>
>> My understanding is avoiding congestion collapse.
>>
>> EV> OK I understand what you mean, so why not simply using those 
>> terms "avoiding congestion collapse" ?
>>
>> Fine with me unless anybody objects.
>>
I find it important to keep a reference to empirical evidence. And we 
may need to discuss what exactly "safety" means in the WG, but I agree 
that avoiding congestion collapse is an important baseline.


How about simply adding:

OLD TEXT

Adoption of standards-track work should consider (1) empirical
evidence of safety and (2) […]

NEW TEXT

Adoption of standards-track work should consider (1) empirical
evidence of safety, such as avoiding congestion collapse, and (2) […]


Best,
Reese