Re: [dmarc-ietf] Charter improvements

[Roland Turner <[e-mail]>]

On 07/16/2013 11:39 PM, J. Trent Adams wrote:

>  From what I can tell, the most important question needing to be answered
> is whether or not revising the base DMARC specification is within scope
> of the proposed work group. Following Russ's guidance, it seems that we
> should start from the assumption that it's not in scope for now given
> the fact that it's being sponsored by an AD as an Individual Submission.
>
> Regardless of whether that's the right path, or not, let's explore it as
> an option and see how the rest of the items identified in the proposed
> charter play out. Then we can leverage the outcome of the conversation
> to potentially revisit the fate of the base specification itself.

I would suggest that this is a problematic approach because of the 
effective need that this creates for the charter discussion to correctly 
predict what the WG will come up with. The WG should work out what the 
WG comes up with, and should have as broad a remit as is feasible (give 
or take IETF process constraints) to do so. This is not to say that 
there should not be a recital acknowledging that the substantial 
installed base will necessarily limit changes - probably to nothing - 
but that seeking to constrain the WG's approach now, rather than during 
it, is likely to be harmful.

I'm thinking particularly about what happened recently with respect to 
the SPF macro facility and the fact that the discussion on removing it 
turned not on whether removing the facility was appropriate, but on 
whether the particular words chosen during chartering meant that this 
was, or was not, a permissible change for the WG to make.

- Roland