Re: draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc2418bis-01.txt

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

Hi.

For whatever it is worth, I've very concerned about the IASA2
effort sliding over into replacement of fundamental process
documents.  RFC 2418, like 2026, is showing its age.  If we are
going to revise it, it seems to me that there is a very good
case for a comprehensive comparison of actual practices today
with the text and document revisions as appropriate and not
publishing a new document in which descriptions of obsolete
practices are repeated.   

As one example among many, the BOF description of 2418 still
discusses the decision to hold a BOF as one that can be made by
a single AD while today's procedure involves formal applications
on a community-wide schedule, IAB and IESG review, etc.  We've
also relaxed the "only once or possibly a second time but never
three" rule.   

As another, RFC 2418 calls for explicit disclosure of conflicts
of interest but points to RFC 2028/ BCP 11 which, AFAICT, only
discusses IPR rights.  In today's Internet and IETF, that would
seem to call for some review and perhaps some comments about AD
<-> WG Chair relationships.  And, as a third, at the time 2418
was written, saying that we do things by rough consensus was
adequate (or at least believed to be adequate).  Today, we've
got RFC 7282, which should probably be referenced, and a
collection of other documents and procedures that interact
significantly with how WGs do their work, how people
participate, and how conclusions are reached.

Those are not the only examples.

Most of those are not huge issues, but it does not seem
appropriate to issue a document that replaces / obsoletes 2418
without addressing them (and several others).

In addition, replacing fundamental IETF process documents
appears to be clearly outside the scope of the IASA2 effort.
The last paragraph of the WG charter begins:

	"Aside from instances where they presently relate to
	IASA, it is outside the scope of this working group to
	consider any changes to anything related to the
	oversight or steering of the standards process as
	currently conducted by the IESG and IAB,...".

The only sense in which this work "presently relates to IASA" is
the title of the IETF Executive Director.  The I-D affirms that
by listing that as the only non-"insignificant" change from
2418.  The new term appears exactly once in this draft and the
old one appeared exactly once in 2418.  It might make sense to
completely replace 2418 if it appeared many times and was
tightly woven in the text, but it isn't. 

FWIW, there are also a number of (other) obsolete references or
missing references in this I-D.  Given that they authors have
not found and fixed them by -01, getting them out presumably
implies extra work for them and the community.

I strongly suggest that, 

 -- to avoid reissuing a fundamental process document and
	thereby explicitly reaffirming procedures and mechanisms
	that do not precisely align with current practices,
 -- to avoid creating confusion about the status of every
	document that references these old process documents, 
 -- to avoid the risks of a supposedly insignificant
	change actually having some substantive consequences,
	and 
 -- to reduce the number of documents and page count
	coming out of the IASA2 WG and process so the community
	can concentrate on reviewing changes that actually are
	important,

this I-D and any others for which the changes to the relevant
base documents are limited to updating a title (or something
equally trivial) be replaced by a single "IASA2-related
terminology update" draft that simply lists the replacement
terms and the documents that are updated to reflect them. I
haven't made a careful study, but it appears to me after quick
glances that a "gather together into one document and update
only the terminology" model could include 3005bis, possibly
4844bis, and perhaps others.

    john


--On Saturday, October 20, 2018 09:47 -0700
[e-mail] wrote:

> 
> A New Internet-Draft is available from the on-line
> Internet-Drafts directories. This draft is a work item of the
> IETF Administrative Support Activity 2 WG of the IETF.
> 
>         Title           : IETF Working Group Guidelines and
> Procedures         Authors         : Scott Bradner
>                           Rich Salz
> 	Filename        : draft-ietf-iasa2-rfc2418bis-01.txt
> 	Pages           : 27
> 	Date            : 2018-10-20
> 
> Abstract:
>    The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has
> responsibility for    developing and reviewing specifications
> intended as Internet    Standards.  IETF activities are
> organized into working groups (WGs).    This document
> describes the guidelines and procedures for formation    and
> operation of IETF working groups.  It also describes the formal
>    relationship between IETF participants WG and the Internet
>    Engineering Steering Group (IESG) and the basic duties of
> IETF    participants, including WG Chairs, WG participants,
> and IETF Area    Directors.