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

[Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Sep 06, 2011 at 11:38:14AM -0400, Ross Callon wrote:
> 
> I haven't heard anyone currently on the IESG say that the two step process would require "higher more rigorous document reviews". 
> 

That particular refusal to recognize part of reality is the thing that
annoys me about this draft and about the discussions leading to its
modification of the official process.

The causal claim asserted early in the I-D's life was that, since many
RFCs effectively live forever today at step 1 of the standards track,
IESG members feel a responsibility to make sure that an I-D is "right"
before publication as PS even though that requirement is much higher
than the RFC 2026 process requires.

As a result, proponents argued, the process would be made less onerous
by moving to a two-step process in which initial publication at step 1
is the same as RFC 2026's step 1, except that it is even easier to go
from that and get the honorific "Internet Standard" than it is today.

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.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[e-mail]