Not particularly to Michael, but replying to this note because he
eloquently phrased some questions that other folk on this mailing list
almost certainly share ...
On 08/20/2014 04:28 PM, Michael Welzl wrote:
On 20. aug. 2014, at 16:46, Marie-Jose Montpetit <[email protected]
<mailto:[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] <mailto:[email protected]>] on
behalf of Aaron Falk [[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>]
*Sent:*Wednesday, August 20, 2014 10:16 AM
*To:*Michael Welzl
*Cc:*Spencer Dawkins at IETF; [email protected] <mailto:[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]
<mailto:[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?
This charter isn't actually to IESG Review yet.
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-taps/ shows the charter in
External Review. If you click on the Charter State hyperlink, you get
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/help/state/charter/, which shows that
IESG Review happens next.
I've already talked to the rest of the IESG about how bleeding confusing
it is that we ballot the charter for External Review (for the purposes
of this conversation, "to send it to the IETF for External Review"), and
ballot the charter again for approval. You can see the first ballot if
you click on version 00-00 of the charter - that was the one that went
through Internal Review, and was approved for External Review).
For basically ever, balloting to send a charter for External Review
happened in a closet. No one outside the IESG and IAB saw what was
happening. The IAB sees what's happening because they're chartered to
look at all BOFs, as part of their duty for architectural oversight, as
described in http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2850#section-2.1. But no one
else was involved.
Recently, and by recently I mean within the past year, we've started
putting the relevant mailing list as one of the notification targets.
That means what's happening is more transparent than what was happening
previously, but almost no one (including the IESG and IAB) is used to
that yet. So, it's still confusing to get ballot notifications during
Internal Review. My apologies for that, of course.
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.
If I said that, I misspoke. Let me try again.
Milestones don't matter during the charter discussions, but they do
matter when the working group is actually working on a document. The
intention is, that they tell the working group (and people outside the
working group) what's on the plate *now*.
The charter describes what's in scope, not the milestones. The
milestones are to help the working group manage its work to accomplish
what's in the charter.
People can work on anything they like, and if they're working on
something that's within scope for the working group, they can talk about
it on the mailing list, and if there's time after discussion of work on
the current milestones, the chairs can make time for it in meetings. But
the purpose of milestones is to focus work.
It may be that this should change, but that's the way our process works
today.
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:"
So, it's possible that not everyone is familiar with
http://www.iab.org/documents/correspondence-reports-documents/2012-2/iab-member-roles-in-evaluating-new-work-proposals/,
but it might be helpful to mention this extract:
A note about IAB member roles
In providing architectural oversight and guidance for a BOF, IAB
members are rarely speaking for the IAB, because the IAB has rarely
determined an IAB consensus position on new work being proposed.
Individual IAB members do not have a privileged role in determining
whether a BOF will result in a chartered working group. IAB members
providing architectural oversight must ensure that their role is not
misunderstood by BOF proponents or by the larger community of interest.
The IESG is requested to give comments from IAB members the same
weight the comments would be given if those persons were not serving
on the IAB — no more, and no less.
So, it doesn't actually matter that Brian is on the IAB (I'm glad that
he is, but that has nothing to do with this charter discussion).
I held the pen for that IAB document, so I actually believe what it says.
...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.
So the thing to remember here is that working group charters are IETF
community property. Yes, there can be a tension between what the broader
community thinks should happen and what the people who actually do the
work are willing to do. That's why we're talking now.
I should also note that the WG Review announcement at
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf-announce/current/msg13052.html
points to the IESG (the exact text says this:
A new IETF working group has been proposed in the Transport Area. The
IESG has not made any determination yet. The following draft charter was
submitted, and is provided for informational purposes only. Please send
your comments to the IESG mailing list (iesg at ietf.org) by 2014-07-31.
This is true for all WG Reviews. It's good that there's been a lot of
discussion in public, and that should shorten the conversation we're
having now, but private feedback to the IESG (not just from IAB members,
but from anyone) is fine.
Again, it may be that this should change, but that's the way our process
works today.
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.
Right about here, it's helpful for me to mention that you folk are still
talking, and I'm still listening :-)
I hope this note has been useful in navigating unfamiliar territory.
Most of the people who aren't on the IESG aren't involved in the charter
process often enough to pick up all the subtleties (see the p.s. below).
And thanks for the questions.
Spencer
p.s. Speaking not as the responsible AD, but as Spencer, and candidly -
I was involved in the charter process for three working groups I
co-chaired, I spent more than three years watching the IESG up close as
one of their scribes, I spent just over three years on the IAB, and
chartering new work is STILL the least obvious thing to me that I'm
responsible for. If other people are also confused, or would like it to
work differently, that could be an excellent open mike topic for the
IETF 91 plenaries (for both the IAB and the IESG, I'd say).
Please don't be shy. We (the IESG) want the way we charter new work to,
well, "work".
_______________________________________________
Taps mailing list
[email protected]
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/taps
