Re: Purpose of IESG Review

[John Leslie <[e-mail]>]

[e-mail] <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> +1 to Joe's comment.
> 
> Example: the existence of the extensibility bit in multipath tcp,
> which i understand came out of a review by the iesg member responsible
> for security.

   I assume you're talking RFC 6824. I recommend reading the Narrative
Minutes of September 13th:

http://www.ietf.org/iesg/minutes/2012/narrative-minutes-2012-09-13.html

There were DISCUSSes from Stephen Farrell (Security), Barry Leiba
(Applications), Robert Sparks (RAI), and Sean Turner (Security).
Stephen Farrell did complain about a negotiation scheme that only allowed
seven security algorithms; and asked "how you could practically extend
this design for stronger cryptographic security".

> In that context, that would be outside the scope of any security
> review,

   Hardly! Those are exactly what I would hope for in a Security review.

> and the comments weren't raised in a personal capacity years earlier
> on the relevant mailing list.

   I'm not going to research that; but it seems hardly relevant...

> Sure, getting past iesg only cost multipath tcp a bit.

   (which, BTW, I strongly endorse!)

> But iesg members exceeding their bounds as reviewers and leaving a
> personal mark seems commonplace.

   Perception is easily mistaken for reality. :^(

   But if you look at the datatracker history:

http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-mptcp-multiaddressed/history/

you'll see that all four DISCUSSes were cleared by October 22.

   Considering that this document started life in June of 2010, and
was a major enhancement of TCP, 40 days doesn't seem excessive, IMHO.

> iesg members are there for expertise in their area and to provide that
> expertise in focused reviews,

   Note that there's really a lot of overlap between areas: so "focused"
may not be the right criterion.

> not to block until a protocol is redesigned to suit their personal
> tastes.

   I am told this used to happen. I have not experienced it in the five
years I have been scribing.

====

   I really don't know how to change the perception -- but I strongly
recommend referring to the Narrative Minutes. Hopefully that history
will be preserved "forever".

--
John Leslie <[e-mail]>