[mpowr] Why MPOWR?

If MPOWR is a solution, I would like to understand what the problem is.

To me, the issue is not IESG overload.  It is the inability of the IETF to
deliver timely and relevant protocol standards.  I can see how the
standards track reforms and perhaps even cross area review might address
that problem (though I'm skeptical about whether either will make a major
difference), but MPOWR seems largely tangential.

In general, I'd prefer to see the reform effort make an effort to pick a
few success metrics and make substantive progress on them.  The IETF is
beginning to show signs of a vicious cycle, which when started, can become
very hard to break.  You don't break a cycle like that and start on an
upward path again without a very clear idea of what you're trying to do,
and what reforms can make a meaningful difference in the key success
metrics, enough to make people stand up and take notice.

A month ago, I attended the IEEE 802 meeting in Vancouver, and it
resembled the IETF meetings of several years ago.  Not just in spirit --
there were lots of former IETF attendees there, some former
chairs of WGs, and even ex-IAB and IESG members.  Many of them now
consider IEEE 802 their primary standards body, not IETF.

If we're going to bring those people back, we are going to need to do
something to make the IETF a place where people feel convinced that they
can get important work done in a timely way.

Some simple reforms could probably make a measurable difference in the
total time from a -00 to an RFC in the short term.  For example, one could
cut considerable time off the end of the process by addressing the
issues with IANA and also by having a seminar at each IETF about reference
dependencies.  In examining the RFC Editor Queue, it is fairly clear to me
that many authors do not understand what a normative dependency is, and as
a result their drafts languish in the queue awaiting resolution of
dependencies which are not really normative.

There are even some drafts in the queue with no prospects for
publication, since they have normative dependencies on drafts that were
abandoned long ago and will never be completed (one of the MIDCOM
documents is an example of this).  A simple education program on
normative references could probably cut several months off the average
completion time.

I also believe we could cut significant time off the beginning of the
process by streamlining the BOF process and moving more quickly to form
"study groups".  There are quite a few cases where it has taken more than
a year to form a working group, and even at least one case where formation
took several years.  Streamlining the BOF process seems quite likely to
shave several months without a lot of effort.

Making issue tracking facilities generally available to WGs is also
something that is likely to cut significant time off the process.  In at
least one WG I've been involved in, it can be argued that the WG process
only began to become effective *after* IESG review, when a tracking system
was installed.  More real work was done in 12 months with an issue
tracking system than was accomplished in the previous two years.  So
significant productivity increases seem likely.

A few months here, a few months there... soon you're talking about
significant time savings.  The difference between a standard that takes
3.5 years and one that takes 5 years is in practice, large.  The former
is late, but perhaps tolerable if the quality is high.  The latter is
likely to have arrived after the market has already chosen a (proprietary)
alternative.

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