IDPR as a Proposed Standard

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>	As to how long the various drafts have been around, I got the
>impression from your message that the Architecture document had only recently
>appeared. This confused me, since I thought I recalled seeing this some time
>ago. I found the following in my file system:
>
>  65 -rw-r-----  1 jnc         65965 Jul 25  1991 /u/jnc/docs/idpr_arch.id
>
>I don't know where I got it, but the .id ending seems to indicate it's an I-D.
>True, the *latest* version may have only gone up recently, but the basic
>document has been around for a while. I reviewed the table of contents of this
>and the latest version, and they appear very similar (although the latest
>version has more comparitive material with DV algorithms). (The new version
>is about 7K characters longer.)

Here is posting to the IETF mailing list that I hope would help to clarify
the confusion (as you see, it is dated April 16):

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    A Revised Internet Draft is available from the on-line Internet-Drafts
    directories. This draft is a work item of the
    Inter-Domain Policy Routing Working Group of the IETF.

           Title     : An Architecture for Inter-Domain Policy Routing
           Author(s) : Marianne Lepp, Martha Steenstrup
           Filename  : draft-ietf-idpr-architecture-04.txt, .ps
           Pages     : 30
		---------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you correctly pointed out, the new version is different from
the previous one. I don't think that comparing the table of contents
is that indicative of the differences, but just the difference
sizes (as you pointed out 7 K characters)  should give you a hint
about the possible scope of differences.

>	I can't speak to the manner in which it was prepared, though, and
>would like to see a reply on this issue.

Here are the facts related to how it was prepared:

	1) It was posted as an Internet Draft WITHOUT any prior
		 review by the working group.
  2) Specifically, it WAS NOT posted to the WG mailing list prior
	   to its appearance as an Internet Draft.
  3) It appears as an Internet Draft with no advance notice to the WG.

>	I fail to see that the fact that several WG members do not agree with
>the actions taken means much. In every WG, there are one or more members who
>do not agree with actions taken by the WG. This does not invalidate the
>decisions of the WG. How is this case any different?  Do a majority of the WG
>members who were actually involved in the development of the protocol disagree
>with these actions? If we are to discard the results of any WG which has a few
>members who do not agree with those results, we might as well fold up shop and
>go home.
>

	The issue is much more deeper that just "several WG members do not agree".
	The issue is that there are several key design issues in IDPR,
	where choices were made quite a while ago, and the choices
	turned out to be ill-justified from a technical point of view.
	
	Thus, moving IDPR in its present form along the standards track
	is likely to lead towards deployment of an immature protocol.
	As was pointed out by Tony Li "This is a hinderance due to its
	opportunity cost for the entire community". In view of these
	factors several members of the working group suggested to submit it
	now as an informational document and have one more round
	of reevaluation of some early made design decisions before
	submitting it to the IESG as a Proposed Standard. These
	suggestions were made by Deborah Estrin and Tony Li, and
 I can certainly support their position.


 Yakov  Rekhter