Re: Should the RFC Editor publish an RFC in less than 2 months?

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

--On Saturday, 01 December, 2007 21:22 +0100 Frank Ellermann
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> John C Klensin wrote:
>  
>> figuring out what we are doing and documenting it would 
>> certainly be a good idea, my suggestion was carefully
>> written to be feasible without any action as formal as
>> opening 2026.
> 
> Yes, and you also said that you're not going to do it.

Yes.  I have made a personal decision that spending my time on
Internet technology and protocols is better for the Internet and
better for my mental and physical health than making further
investments in IETF procedures.  That decision has been
reinforced by an assortment of actions in the past, including
IAB, IESG, and Nomcom actions.   I will probably continue to
track issues like this, and IPR ones, etc.   I may even express
opinions about what might be placed in an I-D.   But, if process
I-Ds need to be written, someone else will need to write them,
at least unless someone starts paying me a salary to do so.

> If Brian wants to tackle it he'd likely integrate your
> idea in his "appeal" I-D, Harald might prefer an ION to
> have it on public record, IMO there are various ways to
> "implement" your proposal.

Of course, although I am in strong agreement with Spencer's
comments that making rigid, BCP-level, procedures for unusual
cases has almost never served us well.   I more or less said
that, but Spencer's note is much more clear and explicit.

>> All it would take to implement that part of my suggestion
>> would be an announcement that, while the appeal window
>> remains at two months, any appeals that intend to ask for
>> a publication hold must be announced in some substantive
>> way within some much shorter time.
> 
> Okay, but it's not a clean hack.  In both cases where I felt
> a sudden urge to appeal (sitefinder-verisign and termination
> of MARID) I ended up with speed reading RFCs based on grep
> and Google searches, I'd certainly have missed anything more
> subtle, e.g. an ION or old IESG announcement buried in a list
> archive.  I needed three months to find "3710 to historic" as
> a potential "remedy", it wasn't on my CD ROM with RFCs, and
> of course three months was anyway far too late.  
> 
> BTW, that's a flaw in Brian's proposal to deprecate the STD 1
> rule, not everybody reads the RFCs online with access on a 
> list of current STDs (etc.) published as rfc-editor.org page.

I think you are conflating two issues.  The first is that what I
suggested is not, IMO, a hack.  It is taking advantage of
flexibility and options for applying discretion that are built
into the system (mostly not by accident).   YMMD, of course.
The second is about whether the IETF processes are
straightforward and well-documented enough that someone who is
not already very familiar with them can efficiently navigate the
process.    We are probably in agreement about that state of
affairs.   I would favor fixing it but, based on painful
experience, I would recommend that anyone who wants to try get
IESG signup first and that they not get the effort entangled
with working on the answer to any short-term or isolated
question (of which publication delay issues are certainly an
example).

Your other comments are much more general.  Whether I agree or
disagree, I don't have time to respond adequately this weekend.
I would, however, note that several of the issues you identify
would have been resolved by proposals that were made a few years
ago.  The IESG decided those changes were either unnecessary,
undesirable, or not worth the trouble and the community accepted
those decisions (even if the only concrete way to measure
"accepted" is that no one got recalled and the IESG did not get
fired in toto).    For better or worse, that suggests that the
people who care about these things are a minority and that they
have not been successful in convincing the majority that the
topics are worth significant consideration.    I think those of
us who make up that minority need to accept that face... and I
have.

        john

    

_______________________________________________
Ietf mailing list
[e-mail]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf