Subject: RE: Cutting through the accumulating sludge (was: Re: Doing the Right Things? and/or WG Quality Processes WG)

From: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 06:18:48 +0300

Hi John,

> For those who don't like reading my long notes -- at least 
> before they know what they have to say -- this note suggests 
> that we bypass WGs and even BOFs for most of this work and adopt 
> a model that uses
> 
> 	* proposal-> affirmative decision -> implementation ->
> 	subsequent review and write up -> Last Call and BCP if needed
> 
> and
> 
> 	* proposal -> negative decision -> discussion/ debate/
> 	serious write up -> Last Call
> 
> instead of pretending the tuning suggestions about WG process 
> are technical standards.  It explains why I think that is 
> appropriate, probably necessary, and The Right Thing to Do.

That sounds like a reasonable way forward, but there are the boring
details of where to feed the proposals, get the decision, do
the review, who should take the lead, etc.  I think this is
what we need to decide to do in the next week or two.

Some detailed comments in following mails.

John L.

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2003 23:13:29 -0700

john,

jlnc> That sounds like a reasonable way forward, but there are the boring
jlnc> details of where to feed the proposals, get the decision, do
jlnc> the review, who should take the lead, etc.  I think this is
jlnc> what we need to decide to do in the next week or two.

The experience with the SIRS proposal would seem to be instructive here.

Brian Carpenter had an idea. He chatted it up. One soul he talked to was
particularly taken by the idea and worked with Brian to produce a few
paragraphs to describe it. Brian floated the paragraphys on a list that
seemed relevant. Comments flowed.

Brian and his unlucky cohort then produced a formal specification,
iterating on the commentary/revision sequence sequence.

A test implementation has just started.  Lots of people have said they
liked the idea.  Some people have volunteered to participate.  We'll see
whether it is useful.

The only "formal" part of this was to coordinate with the IETF Chair,
mostly to make sure that that part of the community did not have
concerns about this.

At some point, it will be appropriate for press this into official form,
but it is not essential to the core development or testing of the idea.

Many bits of work can be done this way, and frankly I also think they
should be.  Not all, but many.

There are substantial benefits, and few detriments. The core benefits
are staying close to a core (good) idea and getting the details
delivered relatively quickly. (As far as I know, Brian's idea was first
floated only at the last IETF.) Hence there is no risk of
design-by-committe bloat or loss of focus, and there is no significant
risk of taking forever to produce something.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>