Subject: Re: draft-housley-two-maturity-levels

From: [email-masked] (Scott O. Bradner)
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 19:20:23 -0400 (EDT)

Phillip politely says
> I think this is nonsense.
> We have been discussing this for over a decade. Time for debate is up. It is
> time to make a decision.

since I see no reason to think that the proposed changes will do 
anything at all to address any of the problems that I, and others, have
brought up (incuding the 'nothing progresses' problem) I have decided

I see no reason that we should make a change that is very likely to 
not fix any known problem just because we have been talking about 
various ideas for change for a long time - length of debate is not
an indication of usefulness of solution

it would not be the end of the IETF if this gets published but
it will also not be the begining of a better IETF - all of the 
problems will still be there and we would have a meaningless change 
just so we can say we made a change

Scott

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From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:04:57 -0400

There is a difference between a proposal that does not fix the problems that
you consider important and a proposal that does not fix any important
problems at all.

All that is being proposed here is a modest change that brings out
documented practices in line with the actual practice. Documenting actual
practice is usually a necessary step before attempting a change.

We have tried to bring actual practice in line with the three step process
on several occasions and they have all failed.

The cost of the status quo is that it diminishes the influence of the IETF
in the Internet community and it means that we spend an amazing amount of
time discussing proposals to change a process that absolutely nobody will
stand up and make a positive case for.

'Needs more time for discussion' is not a positive case for the current
scheme. We have had a decade of discussion and plenty of time for
alternative proposals.

'The alternatives may be worse' is not a positive case when we all agree
that we are not using the current documented process and cannot make it
work.

The only case I can see for not making this change is that it may forestall
more substantial changes such as introducing a protocol maintenance process
like the ITU has with defect reports and so on. But I don't think it is
practical to expect that to happen and I don't think that anyone making that
case is an advocate for more radical change in any case.

If the two step process is accepted, the positive outcome will be that
instead of the majority of Internet STANDARD status documents being
obsoleted, the majority of STANDARD status documents will be the most
current documentation of the corresponding protocol.

This is the least effort means of reaching that result. It is a useful and
necessary step.

On Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 7:20 PM, Scott O. Bradner <[email-masked]> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> Ietf mailing list
> [email-masked]
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>

-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/

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From: "Tony Hain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:27:49 -0700

Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> All that is being proposed here is a modest change that brings 
> out documented practices in line with the actual practice. 
> Documenting actual practice is usually a necessary step before 
> attempting a change.

This does not document actual practice, it documents a different fantasy
state where historically we might have been able to skip a step. 

Actual current practice says that the first RFC is effectively full
standard. Nits about documenting usage over time are not really relevant to
anyone except those focused on process. 

We really should get serious about the term 'proposed', and note that the
referenced document is under development. It is not an end state in itself,
just aging on the shelf to meet a process check mark. 

Tony

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From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 13:56:25 -0700

> just aging on the shelf to meet a process check mark.

Tony,

That would not work, would it?  The driving force behind most WG efforts 
is the community of vendors, who want to produce products ASAP. They 
certainly don't want to wait for a document to "develop". For their 
purposes, Proposed Standard and product out the door (if not earlier, at 
the I-D stage).

Presumably the WG process takes so long because different vendors have 
to work hard to reach a consensus. Once it is reached, they don't want a 
bit to change in the spec before the end of their product cycle.

In this environment, the only thing that seems to make sense is for WGs 
to start usually at Experimental (someone else suggested this, I 
apologize for not recalling who it was).

Bob Braden

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From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 23:25:19 +0200

> apologize for not recalling who it was).

You might mean me. But having authored 2 experimental RFCs, one informational and one PS, I did not get a feeling that the bar was any different between the levels. The only difference was that without implementations, the ADs preferred Experimental to PS. The review process was no different, though.

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From: "Tony Hain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:34:24 -0700

> apologize for not recalling who it was).

It would work if the overall process were more efficient. Now we effectively
go WG I-D to full IS, which is what your eloquent overview of the driving
force notes. If we truncated WG I-D at the common points people could agree
to start implementing, and have PS actually document the evolution of the
implementations, we would get back closer to when the IETF was productive. 

Fundamentally the problem is that the process has evolved to state that you
don't get an RFC number until the work is done. Instead of requiring
'perfection', we need to get back to 'good enough to start', then be
proactive about progressing PS to IS to document 'done'. 

Tony

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From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:48:22 -0700

Tony,

I note that there seems to be some correlation between the degradation 
of the IETF process and
the disappearance of the Internet research community from the IETF (the 
US government
decided that no further R&D funding was required, since the Internet was 
"done".)

Bob Braden
> ...

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From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:24:04 -0400

I think the problems are rather more complex.

>From what I hear, protocol design work is not highly rated by tenure
committees, nor is authorship of RFCs. The type of papers that count for
tenure are the ones that nobody in the field reads.

A lot of the problems we face are not the type of problem that academics can
get credit for solving. Or if they can get credit it is for the wrong type
of solution.

When people move from industry to take a tenure track teaching job their
IETF participation almost always dries up shortly afterward.

>From the industrial perspective, the three stage process is a budget killer.
When budgets get tight it is much harder to justify research staff working
on standards if they are not producing standards.

There are perfectly rational career advantages that cause people to drive
work to W3C or OASIS in preference to IETF. The competing institutions offer
a much more predictable process and a very high likelihood of a clear cut
success. In the IETF in contrast getting a document to DRAFT status has to
be explained as a victory. And that leaves a manager vulnerable when they
are trying to justify budgets against other departments.

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 5:48 PM, Bob Braden <[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> Tony,
>
> I note that there seems to be some correlation between the degradation of
> the IETF process and
> the disappearance of the Internet research community from the IETF (the US
> government

---

From: Joel Jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 11:09:34 -0700

The waist of the hourglass doesn't need that much work... and in fact a
mature system like the internet seems to quite successfully resist
change there.

joel

On 10/27/10 2:48 PM, Bob Braden wrote:
>> implementations, we would get back closer to when the IETF was
>> productive. ...
> 
>> Tony
>>
>>   
>

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From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 23:36:41 -0400

It should be easier to get a specification to IETF standard than to start an
alternative standards organization.

I think that is still true and tried to convince the OpenID people that this
was the case but they did not believe me.

The question is priorities and costs. Having a process that is designed not
to function imposes real costs and reduces the influence of the
organization.