Re: When to adopt a draft as a WG doc (was RE: "IETF work is done on the mailing lists")

[Olafur Gudmundsson <[e-mail]>]

I guess that a better question is:
	"What are the expectations if a draft becomes an WG document?"

The opinions ranges from:
a) It is something that some members of the WG consider inside the scope
of the charter.
....
z) This is a contract that the IESG will bless this document!

Not all working groups are the same, some work on brand new stuff and it
makes sense to have competing ideas progress and then the WG makes a
choice. In other cases the WG is just fixing something in an important
deployed protocol thus stricter criteria makes sense.

For a WG I have chaired we have two adoption paths:
a) publish draft as draft-<editor>-<wg>---, discuss on WG mailing list
once document is on track and people can make intelligent choice ask
for adoption.
b) Chairs based on discussion on lists or events, will
"commission" a WG document to address a particular issue. This will be
published as draft-ietf-<wg>- in version 00. Most of the time this is
reserved for updated version of published RFC's.

	Olafur


On 28/11/2012 10:36, George, Wes wrote:
>> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On
>> Behalf Of John Leslie
>>
>> I'm increasingly seeing a "paradigm" where the review happens
>> _before_ adoption as a WG draft. After adoption, there's a great
>> lull until the deadline for the next IETF week. There tend to be a
>>  few, seemingly minor, edits for a version to be discussed. The
>> meeting time is taken up listing changes, most of which get no
>> discussion. Lather, rinse, repeat...
>
> [WEG] I've seen several discussions recently across WG lists, WG
> chairs list, etc about this specific topic, and it's leading me to
> believe that we do not have adequate guidance for either WG chairs or
> participants on when it is generally appropriate to adopt a draft as
> a WG document. I see 3 basic variants just among the WGs that I'm
> actively involved in: 1) adopt early because the draft is talking
> about a subject the WG wants to work on (may or may not be an
> official charter milestone), and then refine a relatively rough draft
> through several I-D-ietf-[wg]-* revisions before WGLC 2) adopt after
> several revisions of I-D-[person]-[wg]-* because there has been
> enough discussion to make the chairs believe that the WG has interest
> or the draft has evolved into something the WG sees as useful/in
> charter; Then there are only minor tweaks in the draft up until WGLC
> (the above model) 3) don't adopt the draft until some defined
> criteria are met (e.g. interoperable implementations), meaning that
> much of the real work gets done in the individual version
>
> It seems to me that these variants are dependent on the people in the
> WG, the workload of the group, the chairs, past precedent, AD
> preferences, etc. It makes it difficult on both draft editors and
> those seeking to follow the discussion for there to be such a
> disparity from WG to WG on when to adopt drafts. I'm not convinced
> that there is a one-size-fits-all solution here, but it might be nice
> to coalesce a little from where we are today. So I wonder if perhaps
> we need clearer guidance on what the process is actually supposed to
> look like and why. If someone can point to a document that gives
> guidance here, then perhaps we all need to be more conscientious
> about ensuring that the WGs we participate in are following the
> available guidance on the matter.
>
> Wes George
>
> This E-mail and any of its attachments may contain Time Warner Cable
>  proprietary information, which is privileged, confidential, or
> subject to copyright belonging to Time Warner Cable. This E-mail is
> intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it
> is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient of this E-mail,
> you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution,
> copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and
> attachments to this E-mail is strictly prohibited and may be
> unlawful. If you have received this E-mail in error, please notify
> the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any
> copy of this E-mail and any printout.
>
>