Re: [secdir] SECDIR review of draft-leiba-cotton-iana-5226bis-08

[Donald Eastlake <[e-mail]>]

Hi Barry,

On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 11:28 PM, Barry Leiba <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> I'm OK with an unspecified strictness order. But I think "Expert
>> review with significant, stable public documentation." is highly
>> misleading. In the absence of express additional criterion,
>> Specification Required constrains the expert to only judging whether
>> or not the documentation is sufficient. It should say "Significant
>> stable public documentation sufficient for interoperability." or
>> something like that.
>
> I can live with that.  Shall I make the changes, with that modification?

OK. with that I'm satisfied.

>>      Have you ever been in the position of seeking a code point
>> assignment when you believed the relevant expert was both
>> unconstrained by any specific guidelines and actively hostile to your
>> effort? I have and I can tell you I would have loved for the criterion
>> to be a simple Specification Required. So this may color my thinking.
>
> And that's why this version of BCP 26 is much stronger than the RFC
> 5226 version with respect to guidance for the designated expert.  And
> I know that several of us on the IESG now are pushing that, strongly
> asking for DE guidance (often to the puzzlement of the document
> authors, who aren't sure what we're looking for).  I think the reason
> guidance is often lacking is exactly because it's obvious to the
> people writing the document what the DE should be considering, and the
> problems happen much later.

I'm not so sure it's obvious. While there might be people they would
trust, it is really a significant amount of work to try to come up
with reasonably complete guidance - there is really no limit to the
contingencies that could be covered.

Thanks,
Donald
=============================
 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   [phone] (cell)
 155 Beaver Street, Milford, MA 01757 USA
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> All that said, the current IESG is not the future IESG, and there may
> come a time when we again have an IESG that doesn't push on this point
> at all.  Which is why it's good to have the strong push for DE
> guidance baked into BCP 26.
>
> Barry