Re: [Iasa20] 6635bis, theory and practice

Christian, I have to disagree strongly with what you describe.

First, if you want to reopen the whole question of reporting and 
responsibility, please do not burden this revision of RFC 6635 with that 
debate.  That is a debate which will have to involve the whole extended 
community.

Second, your statement description of the RPC not meeting the SLA in 
this case seems to be missing the fact that the RSE has told us all many 
times that the transition work will impact the RPC.  I do not see any 
kind of failure or mismatch between theory and practice in the current 
situation.

Yours,
Joel

On 5/2/19 5:27 PM, Christian Huitema wrote:
> I was going to do  a blow by blow review of the 6635bis draft, but I
> think we should
> first address the difference between the theory presented in the draft
> and the
> actual practice.
> 
> The RFC Editor Model presented in Section2 describes how the various
> bodies are supposed to
> interact in theory, but the practice is significantly different. Some of
> the theory is
> correct: the RFC Editor does lead the design of improvements to the RFC
> Series, is
> According to the theory, is responsible for the content of the
> rfc-editor.org web site,
> and is responsible for developing consensus versions of vision and
> policy documents. But
> the RFC editor only has very limited possibilities to manage the RFC
> Production Center and
> the RFC Publisher. She shares that responsibility with the LLC, who
> manages the contract.
> 
> Take for example the current situation, in which the RFC Production
> Center is not quite
> meeting the service level agreement. There are many possible
> explanations. If the load
> has increased significantly, the reasonable manager will provide more
> resource to the
> production center. On the other hand, if the productivity is
> insufficient, the manager
> should provide feedback and drive improvements. But the RFC Editor is
> not in a position
> to that, because resource and contracts are managed by the LLC.
> 
> There are good reasons why resource and contracts should be managed by
> the LLC, which
> means the LLC should be in the picture. The RFC Editor does set the
> standards, checks the
> SLA, monitors that the service runs well. She can provide advice to the
> LLC on contract
> goals, or on the impact of standards setting on the RFC Production
> Center load. She can
> provide "strategic leadership". But the management is really through the
> LLC, and IMHO
> the draft should reflect that.
> 
> The draft does not just say "manage", it also says "Represents the RFC
> Series and the
> RFC Editor Function within the IETF and externally." The external
> representation is
> fine, but I have some doubts about the internal issues. If the major
> contracts are
> managed by the LLC, then the LLC should be accountable for things like
> meeting
> service level agreements and expectation. Inserting the RSE between the
> production
> center and the community dilutes that accountability, and seems like a
> bad idea.
> 
> We do have a disconnect between the theory presented in the draft and
> the reality.
> My vote would be to edit the draft so it does represent reality, and by
> doing so
> provide better accountability to the community.
> 
> -- Christian Huitema
> 
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