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

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

>> There is no formal process that involves "adopting" anything.
>
> If you mean that we haven't documented a/the formal process, you are
> correct.  If you mean that the IETF has not moved towards rather formal
> steps for explicitly adopting working group drafts, I disagree.
...
> Today, there is typically explicit text in the charter about adoption or
> there is explicit wg approval.

Indeed: we always have the option of having the charter limit
management options.  That's a fine thing to do when it's appropriate,
and some combination of the working group proponents, the community as
a whole, and the IESG decides what's appropriate.  For chartering, the
IESG has the final word.

> Right.  Our documentation of our formal processes has lagged.

I find that to be an interesting interpretation.  I don't see it that way.

I do, indeed, mean that the IETF has not moved towards rather formal
steps for explicitly adopting working group drafts.  We have a common
custom, which many -- probably most -- working groups use.  As Wes
noted, it's not used in a consistent way, exactly because it is NOT a
formal process in any sense.

We have a very well defined mechanism (a formal process) for making it
a formal process, and we haven't done so.  Wes noted that he'd like
to; perhaps you'd like to join him in that.  The formal process, as
you know, would be to submit an Internet Draft with a target status of
BCP, and either find an AD to sponsor it as an individual submission
or make a BoF request and try to get a working group chartered for it.

Only when that document becomes an approved BCP will we actually have
formal steps.  Until then, we have a custom that's usually, but not
always, followed.

Barry