Re: Conclusion of the last call on draft-housley-two-maturity-levels

[[e-mail]]

> On Sep 2, 2011, at 5:36 PM, [e-mail] wrote:

> >> In looking through this discussion, I see:
> >
> >> - People saying that moving from 3 steps to 2 steps is a small step in the
> >> right direction, lets do it. Many people who have said this (including I) have
> >> been silent for a while quite possibly because they have gotten frustrated with
> >> the endless discussion.
> >
> > Ross, I'm right there with you. I fully support this document at worse a small
> > incremental step that clears away the some brush (at best it may actually turn
> > out to be quite valuable) and I'm completely frustrated that this discussion is
> > continuing.
> >
> > This really needs to stop now. And yes, some people aren't happy with the
> > outcome. Thems the breaks.

> As far as our process is concerned, the question is, do we have rough
> consensus to accept it?  I think it's dubious that we have such consensus, and
> apparently so do others.

Simply put, I've watched the responses to this fairly closely, and I completely
disagree with your assessment.

> Personally I think this proposal is Mostly Harmless, so I'm willing to hold
> my nose about it.   But I'm very concerned about the argument that the default
> assumption should be that we change our process even in the absence of
> consensus to do so.

> Regarding the proposal, I get the impression that people are mostly in three
> camps:

Well, none of these describe my own position, which is that eliminating the
three step process will at a minimum act as an incentive to move more documents
along. (You, and most others engaging in this debate, routinely neglect the
psychological factors involved.)

I can easily name a dozen RFCs, all currently at proposed, that I for one will
be strongly incented to work to advance if this step is taken. And there isn't
a chance in hell that I'll bother with any of them if this step doesn't happen,
especially after the recent debacle surrounding the attempt to move 4409bis to
full standard, and more generally given how the entire YAM experiment played
out. I'm sorry, but passing down the advancement gauntlet is plenty hard enough
to do once. Requiring it be done twice? Been there, done that, not remotely
interested in doing it again.

Additionally, by simplifying the process, we will gain essential insight into
where other problems lie. Without such simplification I see no chance at all at
making progress on any of these issues.

> 1) Even if this is a baby step, it's a step in the right direction.  Or even
> if it's not a step in the right direction, taking some step will at least
> make it possible to make some changes in our process.  Maybe we'll not like
> the results of taking this step, but at least then we'll have learned
> something, and if the result is clearly worse we'll be motivated to change it.
> (I call this "change for the sake of change")

That last substantially and obviously mischaracterizes this position. In fact
I strongly recommend that you stop trying to summarize complex position with
cute - and utterly wrong - phrases like this. This is annoying and
quite unhelpful.

> 2) Fixing the wrong problem doesn't do anything useful, and will/may serve
> as a distraction from doing anything useful.
> (I call this "rearranging the deck chairs")

> 3) People should stop arguing about this and just hold their noses about it,
> because the arguing will make it harder to do anything else in this space.
> (I call this "Oceana has always been at war with Eurasia".  Ok, that's
> probably too harsh, but it's what immediately comes to mind.)

Actually, I think there are a substantial numer of people who believe exactly
the opposite of this.

> All of these are defensible theories.    As it happens, I don't believe #1
> applies in this space, I do believe #2, and I have to admit that #3 does
> happen.

> The arguments that people are giving in favor of approving this bother me
> more than the proposal itself does.  (I'm a firm believer that good decisions
> are highly unlikely to result from flawed assumptions, and flawed assumptions
> often affect many decisions.  So challenging a widely-held flawed assumption is
> often more important than challenging any single decision.)

Well, the main argument I'm giving is based on my own perception of the effect
this will have on myself and similarly minded people as a contributor. If you
think that assessment is incorrect, then I'm sorry, but I think you're being
extraordinarily foolish.

				ned