[ietf-822] Re: Fwd: [Ietf-dkim] Fwd: WG Action: Formed Mail Maintenance (mailmaint)

[Keith Moore <[e-mail]>]

On 5/10/24 17:36, Dave Crocker wrote:

>
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
>
> On 5/10/2024 10:54 AM, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:
>> * Prior to accepting any Standards Track document for development, 
>> there must
>> be a commitment to implement the resulting proposed standard from at 
>> least
>> two independent parties, as recorded on a related IETF mailing list.
>>
>> * When deciding to send any Standards Track work to the IESG, there must
>> first be produced a report documenting at least two (preferably more)
>> independent implementations with at least partial interoperation 
>> based on the
>> developed specification.
>
>
> This imposes two, formal requirements for Standards Track that are 
> dramatically higher barriers than is typical for IETF Standards Track 
> specification.

I had a similar impression.

Offhand, I think it's unreasonable to expect parties to commit to 
implement a standard before they've even seen a near-complete draft of 
it, so I'd like to see this provision go away.

Also, historically we have not expected multiple independent 
implementations to appear before sending work to IESG, though sometimes 
this has happened.   While I don't inherently question the desirability 
of encouraging early implementation of a standard-to-be, I wonder 
whether this will cause the WG to "stall" awaiting such implementations 
to appear.   I suspect that's not a desirable outcome.

Traditionally we expected implementations to follow publication as 
Proposed Standard and required them before advancing to later stages.   
Of course, this didn't always work well.   Sometimes the work languished 
and never reached a desirable level of maturity, and sometimes the 
protocol was widely implemented without advancing and the motivation to 
maintain the specifications had to come from somewhere else (if it ever 
did).

I welcome more exploration of how to maintain core IETF protocol 
specifications over long periods of time, as I see this as an emerging 
problem for IETF.  I'm not sure how well the traditional WG structure 
adapts to this need.  Of course, nothing stops this group from being 
rechartered, or the work from being moved to a different structure, in 
the future, so I don't see this aspect of the current mailmaint charter 
to be a serious concern.

Keith