Re: draft-housley-two-maturity-levels

[Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]>]

There is a difference between a proposal that does not fix the problems that
you consider important and a proposal that does not fix any important
problems at all.

All that is being proposed here is a modest change that brings out
documented practices in line with the actual practice. Documenting actual
practice is usually a necessary step before attempting a change.


We have tried to bring actual practice in line with the three step process
on several occasions and they have all failed.

The cost of the status quo is that it diminishes the influence of the IETF
in the Internet community and it means that we spend an amazing amount of
time discussing proposals to change a process that absolutely nobody will
stand up and make a positive case for.

'Needs more time for discussion' is not a positive case for the current
scheme. We have had a decade of discussion and plenty of time for
alternative proposals.

'The alternatives may be worse' is not a positive case when we all agree
that we are not using the current documented process and cannot make it
work.

The only case I can see for not making this change is that it may forestall
more substantial changes such as introducing a protocol maintenance process
like the ITU has with defect reports and so on. But I don't think it is
practical to expect that to happen and I don't think that anyone making that
case is an advocate for more radical change in any case.


If the two step process is accepted, the positive outcome will be that
instead of the majority of Internet STANDARD status documents being
obsoleted, the majority of STANDARD status documents will be the most
current documentation of the corresponding protocol.

This is the least effort means of reaching that result. It is a useful and
necessary step.


On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Scott O. Bradner <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
> Phillip politely says
> > I think this is nonsense.
> > We have been discussing this for over a decade. Time for debate is up. It
> is
> > time to make a decision.
>
> since I see no reason to think that the proposed changes will do
> anything at all to address any of the problems that I, and others, have
> brought up (incuding the 'nothing progresses' problem) I have decided
>
> I see no reason that we should make a change that is very likely to
> not fix any known problem just because we have been talking about
> various ideas for change for a long time - length of debate is not
> an indication of usefulness of solution
>
> it would not be the end of the IETF if this gets published but
> it will also not be the begining of a better IETF - all of the
> problems will still be there and we would have a meaningless change
> just so we can say we made a change
>
> Scott
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