[hrpc] Moving forward on draft-irtf-political

[Eliot Lear <[e-mail]>]

Corinne,

Thanks.  Please see below.

> On 23 Sep 2019, at 20:47, Corinne Cath <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I think Stephane Couture made an important point: it is important to locate consensus on the politics of protocols in its respective academic disciplines and literatures, and have the document reflect that nuance.

Agree.

> 
> Furthermore, having followed this discussion for a while now (about a year or four) I feel part of the continued disagreement seems to stem from the fact that people have very different understandings of the word "political" and "politics”.

Although, at least for me, characterizing that as disagreement is overstating the case,  I agree that providing clarity on the terms and the bounding of their meaning would put any thesis and argumentation on better footing.

> For some it refers to the subtle ways by which protocol design is influenced by the values/interests/power dynamics between various folks present in the IETF and to others it refers to capital R or D conversations among politicians happening outside of the IETF, and yet to others its definition lies somewhere in the middle of these two.

Again, some precision is called for.  I think you are talking about the politics of development of standards versus the political ramifications of the results.  This relationship could be explored.  For instance, I think those who participated in webrtc would have found that development process somewhat political, in terms of finding a way forward; but I would be hard pressed to find political ramifications from the results, in as much as broader society is impacted (again, my imagination may be limited).  On the other hand, I could imagine the reverse, where the IETF standardized something with little if any controversy that turned out to have profound political ramifications.

Asking Avri and you now with your co-chair hats, I think it would be helpful to pause for a moment and just reflect on the issues the have been raised with regard to this work and how to structure discussion going forward.

For instance: is there agreement on the research question in the document?  If not, what is the point of considering anything else?  Has that question already been addressed elsewhere?  If not, great.  If so, what is the contribution this work is intended to provide?

As you ponder this, it may be that there are multiple points of view to be heard.  As an RG we have the possibility to publish differing perspectives, and this has happened in the past, most notably in the Routing RG when it was active.

Regards,

Eliot