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

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> > I find it impossible to believe that this will not result in even more
> > hard-line positions on the part of some IESG members when something
> > with which they disagree is a candidate for PS.  I see no way in which
> > the draft solves this problem, which remains one of its implicit
> > goals.  I said before, I don't care if it is published, because I
> > think it will have little effect.  But I think we'd better be prepared
> > for some IESG members to insist on the same high bar for PS that we
> > have under RFC 2026, regardless of what the RFC says.

> +1

> Best statement of the problem with this document that I've seen so far.

Except for one small problem: It's nonsensical.

Why is it nonsensical? Because you're comparing the status quo with a possible
future course of action. The one thing that's we can be certain of is things
won't remain the same. They never do. So in order to make a reasonable
comparison you have to project what's likely to happen if this document isn't
approved, then compare that with what might happen if it is.

And the future where this isn't approved is fairly easy to predict: As more and
more documents become proposed standards and then fail to progress along the
standards track - and the trend lines for this could not be clearer - we
effectively move more and more to a one-step process. The IESG has only one
rational response to that: Continue to raise the bar on the initial step to
proposed.

Will the imposition of a two step process change this? It certainly won't do so
immediately, so the likely outcome is that yes indeed, the bar will continue to
go up, at least initially, irrespective of whether or not this document is
approved. But if more documents start advancing - and yes, that's an if - that
will lessen the pressure on the initial step, and perhaps break the cycle we're
currently stuck in.

And please don't try trotting out a bunch of additional what ifs about how if
this proposal fails we can then get past this distraction (or however you would
characterize it) and address whatever it is you think the actual problems are.
Given the time that has gone into trying to make this one simple and fairly
obvious change, if it fails, the odds of someone attempting even more
fundamental changes are pretty darned low.

				Ned