[lamps] IESG review of draft-ietf-lamps-cmp-updates-20

[Roman Danyliw <[e-mail]>]

Hi!

draft-ietf-lamps-cmp-updates was on the IETF telechat today and the outcome of the ballot was an insufficient number of positions to pass.   See
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-lamps-cmp-updates/ballot/.  Procedurally, any Proposed Standard (PS) status document needs 2/3rds of the IESG (10 of the 14 members) to ballot "Yes" or "No Objection" to pass.  Unfortunately, the results we have is that 5 IESG members have balloted ABSTAIN, which means that irrespective of the two ADs clearing their DISCUSS positions, this document can't advance to publication.

The primary concerns of those ABSTAINing appeared to be that the editorial style of a large collection of OLD/NEW patches makes the document unreadable.  If you recollect, this was the reason why I asked for documentation of this editorial choice during the AD Review (https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/spasm/5yAA3RADNiqNRwvDe_8GCg3Q-WY/ ). The IESG also questioned why the WG couldn't just publish a bis document.  There is a prior history of the IESG raising concerns with such an editorial style and ultimately sending it back to the WG (https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-nfsv4-mv1-msns-update/ballot/)

With the help of background from Russ and Hendrik, I reminded the IESG of:
** the history of  why this document grew to the length that it was, and that this patch style approach is not uncommon for PKIX documents

** that there are pending PRs in OpenSSL and BouncyCastle to support this document (and these communities are waiting for an RFC to accept them)

** one of the primary ways in which the PKIX community interacts with CMP is via libraries

The IESG also discussed if we need to put out a statement to better guide "patch-style update documents" in the IETF.  I was supportive of this but stressed that any such statement should apply to future work.

The ADs are sympathetic to blocking the work, so we defined the following steps to find a way to advance the document.  No guarantees, but these steps would provide structure for the ADs to revisit their ballots (and get us closer to the needed 10 positions).  These steps included:

** Returning the document back for IESG Review on the June 30 telechat (reason: certain ADs balloted ABSTAINed and didn't review all of the details of the document; with the benefit of this additional WG background described above, returning this document gives them more time for review)

** Plan and define a formal milestone in the datatracker that set expectations on when a CMP bis document would be published (reason: certain ADs would feel reassured that the WG has a plan to provide a more readable update document via bis and approval of this current document would be a stop-gap measure) 

** Add text into the current draft-ietf-lamps-cmp-updates which explains why this patch style was used and alluding to WG plan for a full bis document

** Updating the shepherd write-up for the implementations of this document

Thanks for the WG's continue work on CMP.  This is an important technology for the community.

Regards,
Roman