Re: [Last-Call] Last Call: BCP 83 PR-Action Against Dan Harkins

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

On Sun, Oct 2, 2022 at 9:04 PM Brian E Carpenter <
[e-mail]> wrote:

> On 03-Oct-22 13:17, Keith Moore wrote:
> > On 10/2/22 19:55, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I would also like to see a rule that any WG chair who starts off with a
> statement of the form 'we have to do this in 12 months so we have to do it
> this way' is automatically booted from the WG 12 months later. Every single
> time I have seen that used it has been playing dirty pool and none of the
> WGs has delivered anything of note in four years.
> >
> > I would instead say that any group that, whether via the charter or the
> chair, is told "you have to do it this way" should be immediately shut down.
>
> Hang on. There are occasions when the charter is quite restrictive for a
> good reason connected with the "running code" part of our mantra. For
> example, I think the original NFS WG was restricted by
> backwards-compatibility with proprietary NFS. (However, I don't know where
> I'd look to find the original NFS charter.) In the current DMARC charter it
> says:
>
> "The working group will seek to preserve interoperability with the
> installed base of DMARC systems, and provide detailed justification
> for any non-interoperability."
>
> I'm sure there are many other examples, as well as quite a lot of charters
> referring to a personal I-D as a starting point. So while charters cannot
> preempt the final rough consensus, they can certainly restrict the starting
> point.
>

I have no problem when there is a legitimate reason for picking a
particular approach and this is stated up front. Many IETF working groups
are started to standardize an existing protocol - S/MIME, OpenPGP, etc. etc.

When I propose an approach two years before a WG is started, then get told
that there is 'no time' to consider the approach I took and then seven
years after the WG is formed, nine years after I made my proposal, I am
reviewing the last call of the RFC taking that approach... well, I come to
conclusions, I do, I come to conclusions.