On 20. aug. 2014, at 16:46, Marie-Jose Montpetit <[email protected]> wrote:

> I may talk for myself but yes running code is one reason I am interested in 
> this. I have worked and still am working on architectures for this. But the 
> proof is in the pudding. As long as we cannot show a approach that works, 
> scales and is reliable we are doing research not engineering. And after 15 
> years of research I am ready for engineering :-)
> 
> /mjm
> From: Taps [[email protected]] on behalf of Aaron Falk 
> [[email protected]]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2014 10:16 AM
> To: Michael Welzl
> Cc: Spencer Dawkins at IETF; [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [Taps] So, catching back up on the charter
> 
> First, apologies to the group for not explaining the reasoning for the 
> changes in the last draft.  
> 
> On Aug 20, 2014, at 3:15 AM, Michael Welzl <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> On 20. aug. 2014, at 05:30, Spencer Dawkins at IETF wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> The milestone text is a matter for the AD, in consultation with the working 
>>> group. Additions, changes and deletions that are within scope of the agreed 
>>> charter don't go back to the IESG. We often stick document status in 
>>> milestones, and that doesn't go back to the IESG, either.
>>> 
>>> Milestone dates are a matter for the chairs, in consultation with the 
>>> working group. An AD might have opinions about how fast a working group 
>>> should be moving, but we don't approve milestone date changes.
>> 
>> Thanks a lot for all this information!
> 
> Connecting the dots a bit here to make things more explicit: the removal of 
> the 3rd milestone was at Spencer’s request and in response to repeated IAB 
> guidance that work on the third deliverable was a possible distraction from 
> completing the 1st two.  The AD & IESG are the 'work managers' for the IETF 
> so their opinion counts on this topic.

IESG: is this indeed their opinion? If so, why didn't they say that during IESG 
review?
AD: in his email, Spencer essentially said that milestones don't matter much; I 
tried to explain why I think this milestone matters to us.
IAB: All I know is that IAB member Brian Trammell has written, to the list, 
yesterday: "Per the third point of the charter, I think we want to add the 
third milestone back, but make clear that the effort is experimental; something 
like:"

...add to this the fact that we're after IETF Open review, where this charter 
has been looked at and agreed upon by a lot of folks who might no longer agree 
if we do a significant content change, then this seems just weird to me.


>>> The high-order bit is, you really want work described in the charter text 
>>> unless you want to go back to the IESG, but a working group can 
>>> add/change/remove milestones for work that's described in the charter at 
>>> whatever time seems appropriate. So, please look most carefully at the 
>>> non-milestone charter text, because that's what's most difficult to change.
>> 
>> There were some smaller changes to it in the last proposal that I suggested 
>> to undo in my previous email, because we do want to write that third 
>> document. Note that "undo" means "back to the version that was at IETF open 
>> review. I guess we should avoid semantic changes to that version unless we 
>> have very strong reasons.
> 
> I’ll address that in the relevant thread. Keep in mind that the charter is 
> now being reviewed by folks outside the group so it is not surprising that 
> there are new questions coming up (particularly about clarity).  My 
> experience is that this broader review is often important for making explicit 
> some implied context.  I’ve tried to add detail in my changes but maybe I’ve 
> gotten it wrong.  If so, that’s useful to getting us all on the same page.
> 
>> 
>> 
>>> I would expect TAPS to add milestones when TAPS is ready to adopt an 
>>> individual draft (the draft name is one of the milestone attributes), and 
>>> work on it as a group. After that, the draft needs to reflect the editor's 
>>> understanding of what the working group thinks.
>>> 
>>> Q: So, my question: 
>>> 
>>> How important is it for the working group to begin work on the third 
>>> deliverable immediately?
>> 
>> I can't speak to "immediately" - logically, that work follows the first two 
>> items. Some people may be eager to start some of this work straight away, 
>> perhaps - I really don't know, this is for others to answer.
>> 
>> What I think is important to members of this group is that there is a 
>> dedication there that this document will be written. What you say above 
>> about milestones reflects their "internal" meaning, but I think there is 
>> another side to this: as someone external who *might* be interested in 
>> contributing to TAPS, I go to the IETF web site, click on TAPS, see e.g. the 
>> first two milestones and think "ah, these two lists is all they really 
>> develop". The most interesting bit is missing - so it's a boring, possibily 
>> useless group and I don't get involved.
> 
> The charter modification that included the description of the third doc 
> without scheduling the milestone was intended to address just that point.  
> This is planned work but won’t be scheduled yet. 

Why not scheduled? We wanted it to be scheduled, we wanted a dedication that 
this will be done when we put it in the charter about a year ago and when we 
kept it there all this time.


>> Flexibility regarding how services really are provided is a key feature of 
>> TAPS, so it's absolutely natural for that third item to be experimental - 
>> but if we don't document an example way of implementing this, we really just 
>> have an empty shell. Similarly, if we don't put the milestone there now, we 
>> have an obviously boring group. That would be a bit like defining what 
>> DiffServ services do for the application without even hinting at how they 
>> could be implemented.
> 
> I’m a little concerned that “flexibility”, “experimental”, and “interesting” 
> are indicators that there’s research to be done here.  And the IETF doesn’t 
> have a good track record for research in working groups.  (That is a role for 
> the IRTF, as I’m sure you know.)  Working groups seem to function best when 
> there are one or more well-worked out proposals (or, better, running code) 
> that the group can reconcile.  So, I can understand the concern about this 
> being a distraction from the ‘boring but useful’ work.

I don't understand. It's perfectly normal, and good design, to standardize only 
what's needed and keep things open. That's all over IETF standards - as you 
know from DCCP, which is a framework for "interesting" "experimental" new 
CCIDs. That's what I'm talking about. We do want a well-worked out proposal and 
running code, just not prescribe it as the only possible implementation.

Plus, for a more general answer to the standard "isn't this research, shouldn't 
this be IRTF work?" question, see our FAQ  ;-)
A1.2.2 at 
https://sites.google.com/site/transportprotocolservices/questions-that-we-need-to-answer

Cheers,
Michael

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