Re: Submission of charter for POISON

John C Klensin <klensin@mail1.reston.mci.net> Mon, 29 April 1996 11:48 UTC

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Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 07:47:21 -0400
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From: John C Klensin <klensin@mail1.reston.mci.net>
Subject: Re: Submission of charter for POISON
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To: "Erik Huizer (SURFnet ExpertiseCentrum bv)" <Erik.Huizer@sec.nl>
Cc: Fred Baker <fred@cisco.com>, IESG <iesg@CNRI.Reston.VA.US>, poised@tis.com
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At 12:04 96.04.29 +0200, Erik Huizer (SURFnet ExpertiseCentrum bv) wrote:
>Here's the charter for the folow-up of poised95, and the formal
>request toi the IESG to review this and establish the WG.
>
>I have named it POISON, for reasons stated in the charter. If the
>name seems to excessively dangerous the alternative is: POISSON. In
>...

Erik,

I'm going to stick my neck out and argue that it is not desirable to charter
this as a WG at this time (although I like the name).  Three reasons:

  (i) Running a continual POISED process takes up valuable meeting time
(historically in larger quantities that we give other WGs) at IETF meetings
and poses unresolvable conflicts.  To be clear about the latter, I'd suggest
that there are two types of people who participate in POISED and attend its
sessions: 

   -- those who would be better serving IETF by participating in conflicting
      technical WG sessions
   -- those who would be better serving IETF by staying home and 
      watching television.

And there are people whose contributions might be valuable who aren't
actively participating because they are doing what IETF normally considers
useful work, i.e., participating in WGs, writing or refining documents, etc.

  (ii) Running a standing procedures WG is an invitation to ISO-itis.  I
suggest that we should take the results of previous POISED efforts and run
with them, chartering a new WG only if something is shown to be broken that
takes a WG to solve.

  (iii) You have indicated that the WG will process several documents that
we have been unable to get written in several cycles of the authoring
bodies, written by those bodies.  If a conventional would-be WG came along
and said "we've been trying to get Joe Foo and his successors to write this
for three years, and he hasn't found time, so now we are going to charter a
WG which will make them write it", we'd send the proposal back and tell the
proposer "document first".   I think that logic applies here too and that
the sequence of events should be:

   -- get draft documents written and posted as I-Ds.

   -- figure out, using our usual procedures, whether a WG is needed to 
     review those documents or whether they can be approved on an extended
     last call.

   -- charter a WG iff there are serious document drafts on the table that
     need the type of review that only a WG with a charter and meetings 
     can provide.

--john