Subject: History of protocol discussion or process in WG

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2013 02:34:57 +0100

I recommend that IETF WGs consider start an initial historical I-D
including their memories of important process or design of protocols,
at least each 20 years WG participants could document their technical
involvement history within WG work.

AB

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From: Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2013 09:49:34 +0000

> involvement history within WG work.

The IETF is a bottom up process, so if you want to volunteer for this I'm
sure everyone would be very pleased.

Nick

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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2013 13:15:30 +0000

>involvement history within WG work.

What?  How about RFC 5218?

This is done all the time through the WG process, and it changes all the
time too, which is appropriate.

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From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2013 13:17:03 +0100

> time too, which is appropriate.

Many WG open and close in IETF with no history-ID/report of such
efforts including success or failur issues. If documents produced, new
generation can benefit from these IDs

AB

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From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2013 08:29:37 -0800

> generation can benefit from these IDs

+1

5218 is a general document; I believe what AB suggested is a historical record specifically for each WG: what you started with, what you went through, how you ended, what you have learned, both principles and lessons.

Lixia

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From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2013 13:28:07 -0500

>>>>> "Lixia" == Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]> writes:

    Lixia> 5218 is a general document; I believe what AB suggested is a
    Lixia> historical record specifically for each WG: what you started
    Lixia> with, what you went through, how you ended, what you have
    Lixia> learned, both principles and lessons.

I'm not sure I've ever been involved with a WG where you could have
gotten consensus on any of the above enough to publish it.  Nor can I
think of many WGs that have the excess energy to do this work.  Even
getting consensus on a summary of where you ended up is quite
tricky. Because of who I'm responding to I'm imagining getting consensus
on a summary of where the RRG ended up on the discussion of well
whatever it is that they were discussing regarding id/loc split and all
that stuff.
WGs aren't particularly easier in this regard.
You could probably get consensus on which set of documents a WG
published in most cases, but if you added any context, say a discussion
about whether those documents are still good ideas, it becomes a lot
harder.

This has value. I've supported certain aspects of the ISD proposals, of
some things coming out of newtrk, etc. One aspect I've always disagreed
with is proposals of this type that proposed to be generally applicable
across the IETF.
I agree that writing down where we were, where we are, what happened in
between can be valuable. However it is quite expensive, and we need to
balance that.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2013 10:38:47 -0800

On 2/3/2013 10:28 AM, Sam Hartman wrote:
> tricky.

Getting consensus on the details of a history is much more difficult 
than on a technical spec...

So don't try.

What I think /is/ possible, however, is to establish a "history of" 
wiki, to which participants can contribute their views.

Moderate it, to limit the noise.  Solicit and vet contributions from 
principals, to seed the data with credible material.

Then let historians worry about synthesizing this source data into 
something more coherent (and biased, and ...)

But at least the raw narrative of motivated principals will have been 
captured.

In terms of administrative overhead, there isn't much, other than 
creating a separate page for each activity.

d/

-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2013 21:04:37 +0000

On 02/03/13 11:29, "Lixia Zhang" <[email-masked]> allegedly wrote:

>I believe what AB suggested is a historical record specifically for each
>WG: what you started with, what you went through, how you ended, what you
>have learned, both principles and lessons.

90% of that is meeting notes.  Everyone keeps good meeting notes, right?
(:-p).  The rest, well, the chairs could write it at WG closure and
probably not get any significant complaints.

---

From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2013 13:17:40 -0800

> probably not get any significant complaints.
Having responded to an appeal associated with handling of a WG document, 
there can easily be 2000k worth of messages sitting in the archives 
arcoss multiple lists for a given document.

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From: Nick Hilliard <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2013 21:23:40 +0000

On 03/02/2013 21:17, joel jaeggli wrote:
> there can easily be 2000k worth of messages sitting in the archives arcoss
> multiple lists for a given document.

I forsee many phds for future anthropologists and social historians.

Nick

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From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2013 14:04:43 -0800

> I forsee many phds for future anthropologists and social historians.
I know somebody who reconsidered the wisdom of doing a master's thesis 
that involved the RSVP WG process.

---

From: Lixia Zhang <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2013 15:56:38 -0800

got several quick replies!
a few points:

1/ there seem 2 separable issues:
- whether AB's suggestion is something worth considering doing
- whether one believes it is feasible to do it.

Lets not mix the two.

2/ there seems an implicit assumption that, if a history record is written, it'd only document one view (hence all the concerns about not being able to agree)?

Maybe it is best to document different opinions if different opinions exist?  Some time down the road IETF can look back, not only see which opinion has a better match to the reality (or even none of them), but also (hopefully!) understand better where our thought has gone right/wrong.

3/ no question that doing this would take time and effort, just like anything else that is worth doing. So the real question is: would this be worth trying?

Lixia
PS: would very much like to, but probably wont be able to keep up with this discussion (and will miss next IETF to chat with people in person)

---

From: "Hector Santos" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2013 13:26:47 -0500

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Crocker" <[email-masked]>
To: "Sam Hartman" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Abdussalam Baryun" <[email-masked]>; "ietf" <[email-masked]>; "Lixia Zhang" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2013 1:38 PM
Subject: Re: History of protocol discussion or process in WG

> principals, to seed the data with credible material.

IMO, thats the problem. This "Judging" (and editing) is subjective and increasingly conflictive, and quite often by the same suite of people who don't have the same views as others, especially when there is legitimate technical and engineering conflicts.  The last thing the IETF should seek is filtering of engineering views.  It can defeat the purpose of learning from the difficult conflicts so that hopefully, the IETF can better evolve.

I suggest a "standard" (and easy to complete) WG survey for anyone to complete. I'm sure there are a set of survey questions that can be deemed very useful and can be used to extract "value" information about a WG process just completed.   As a side note, this may have to be offered with anonymous input as well.

--
HLS

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From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2013 09:46:44 +0000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Crocker" <[email-masked]>
To: "Sam Hartman" <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Abdussalam Baryun" <[email-masked]>; "ietf"
<[email-masked]>; "Lixia Zhang" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2013 6:38 PM
> than on a technical spec...

There is an I-D in IDR which recorded a substantial part of the history
but it was the AD, and the WG, that was not happy with it so it is
currently in - well, I don't know what state (now if we had a summary of
the status of I-Ds adopted by a WG published each month, as was recently
suggested on this list, well, then, I would have the status off pat:-)

Tom Petch

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From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2013 10:23:55 +0000

Whoops, I lost a 'not'
Tom Petch

> > > gotten consensus on any of the above enough to publish it.  Nor
can
> I

but it was the AD, and NOT the WG, that was not happy with it so it is

Tom Petch

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From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:38:29 +0100

> than on a technical spec...

+1.  In fact in the ITU context they will sometimes spend half a day on
a meeting report.  I really don't think we want to go there.

What I would like not to have happen is that we spend any time bickering
over who said what, especially if it detracts from the business of
developing excellent standards.  I think your point, Dave, about
synthesis being left to historians is a good one, and I might go
farther, and say that the whole endeavor should be.  But having at least
a record from individauls about what *they* said or meant is, I suppose,
not unreasonable.

Eliot

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From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2013 12:58:02 +0000

The best engineering practice while making new technologies/procedures is
that they look/read into all world current, past, and
future related-knowledge  [1] [2], all information phases are important for
producing reasonable; I-Ds, RFCs, standards, BCP, etc.

In IETF meetings and discussions there is not way we can ignore the past
discussions [3][4]. The IETF is documenting/recording meetings (not
reporting attendance size [5]), I-D versions related to RFCs, discussions
on the IETF lists, but I think that each WG in IETF after a period of time
(about 20 years) can work out an I-D of issues related to RFCs that will be
read by IETF next generation engineers (hopefully written by WG RFCs
editors before we loose them).

>From my experience in reading IETF WGs lists, some authors and WG
discussions don't go into reasons of update version of I-Ds, but the reason
is only known if a participant asked for it. Some I-Ds authors discuss the
change outside the IETF, that is why I suiggested [6].

Please note that many I-Ds and RFC are not perfect described, understood or
interpreted [7], because while discussing an I-D in meetings or on
lists the interpretation changes by IETF participants (not all readers of
that I-D). Therefore, I think there is a need for more historic RFCs in
IETF as suggested before [8], but in both procedural and technical
IETF works/efforts. I am happy to find [9] in IETF documenting processes
(need to be updated) and hoping to see more past engineering helpful
experience in I-Ds.

[1] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg76967.html

[2] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/manet/current/msg14896.html

[3] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg76941.html

[4] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg76942.html

[5] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg74755.html

[6] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg74750.html

[7] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg76940.html

[8] http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg76040.html

[9] http://trac.tools.ietf.org/misc/outcomes/

My opinion to make the IETF life easier and linked :)

AB

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From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2013 08:49:07 -0500

--On Tuesday, February 05, 2013 12:38 +0100 Eliot Lear
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> So don't try.
> 
> +1.  In fact in the ITU context they will sometimes spend half
> a day on a meeting report.  I really don't think we want to go
> there.
> 
> 
> What I would like not to have happen is that we spend any time
> bickering over who said what, especially if it detracts from
> the business of developing excellent standards.  I think your
> point, Dave, about synthesis being left to historians is a
> good one, and I might go farther, and say that the whole
> endeavor should be.  But having at least a record from
> individauls about what *they* said or meant is, I suppose, not
> unreasonable.

One additional and complementary observation:  It has often been
observed that we (and many other bodies and contexts) get better
results when no one worries about taking credit (IIR, someone
(Fred Baker?) even had a signature line to that effect for a
while).  One might even suggest that one of the reasons early
ARPANET/ Internet developments worked better than the IETF
process of today is that there was wide recognition that it was
necessarily a collaborative effort with many people contributing
ideas and no one wanting to seize credit.  I cringe every time
we, or the RFC Editor, get into an argument about numbers of
authors, company names and/or titles in various places, etc.

Trying to do contemporary history (or other oxymorons) on IETF
work that identifies the specific evolution of protocols and
ideas would, IMO, tend to reinforce those impulses toward
identification of inventors and claiming of credit.  If it did,
it would almost certainly be damaging to efficiency and/or
quality independent of the resource and other problems.

    best,
    john

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2013 09:30:20 -0500

> a record from individauls about what *they* said or meant is, I suppose,

Indeed.  And this (and the rest of the posts in this thread) in fact
provide such a record, automatically.

Historians overwhelmingly prefer primary sources, and the IETF (at
least in recent years) is obliging: we have minutes of meetings, full
recordings of the audio streams, and long and well-maintained mailing
list archives.  Historians who wish to figure out the history of some
bit of protocol have ample resources.  I see no reason whatever for
WGs to produce a self-congratulatory (or soul-searching) documents
talking about how they managed to do something.  An obsession with
meta-meta-meta-process is a sure sign of organizational morbidity. 

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2013 01:11:13 -0800

Hi Eliot,
>developing excellent standards.  I think your point, Dave, about

Yes.

>a record from individauls about what *they* said or meant is, I suppose,

I post the draft of the minutes to the mailing list.  There have been 
cases where what was meant came out differently in writing.  The 
person suggested text to clarify that.  The working group did not 
object.  The minutes were added to the record (proceedings).

Regards,
-sm