Subject: Re: Should the IESG rule or not? and all that...

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 10:41:23 -0700 (PDT)

My thoughts on reading the IPv6 H/H Option discussion:

	Some technical decisions about the Internet protocol suite are
	more important that others.  Decisions about application-layer
	issues are of course important to particular segments of the
	community and industry, but decisions that impinge on the
	fundamental communication mechanism of the Internet are
	critical to us all.  Such decisions must be made very, very
	carefully, with considerable care and not a little wisdom.

	History has established the IETF as the body responsible for
	decisions about the fundamental structure of the Internet.
	W3C certainly can set standards at the application layer,
	for example, but decisions about the waist of the "hour
	glass" belong in the IETF.  We need to take this
	responsibility seriously, and waste less time on lawyering
	the procedures.

	You cannot provide "adult supervision" over the Internet
	protocol suite with a committee of 2000 people; you have 
	to delegate a major responsibility to a small group of
	technical experts.  Technocratic democracy is fine up to
	a point, but ...

	After Kobe, the IETF established the IESG and IAB as twin
	oversight bodies with some responsibility to look after
	the overall technical health of the Internet, especially
	the important parts.  As a member of the RFC Editor team,
	I have had the privilege to sitting in IESG meetings now
	and then, and I know from that experience that the IESG
	takes this responsibility very, very seriously, as they
	ought.

	It is true that the IETF has no strict control over what bits
	people choose to put into IP headers, but in fact we have a lot
	of influence.  We can bring quite a bit of informal pressure
	against renegade (from our viewpoint) companies or bodies.  For
	example, the Host Requirements RFCs successfully deprecated and
	effectively eliminated a number of technical deviations.  So
	the registration process is important and gives us some
	leverage, as long as we continue to act as adults.

	I agree with the comments made by Joel Halpern yesterday.

Bob Braden

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 13:24:50 -0700

> 	the important parts.  

Bob,

As I recall, you were on the IAB that was deposed after the Kobe revolt.  I 
use such a strong word because that really is what happened, and it took some 
years for the IAB to find its role as architectural staff experts for IETF 
work.  (In the last couple of years, it has moved increasingly into 
line-management issues, thereby completely muddling its role as appeal court 
for challenged IESG decisions.)

I was on the IESG that inherited the responsibilities from the Kobe change. 
Your characterization of what happened is completely different from my 
experience of it.

Before Kobe, the IAB operated in a relatively parental manner, with periodic 
and unpredictable late-stage rejection of lengthy working group output.  Not 
surprisingly, this engendered considerable and deep dissatisfaction among the 
IETF community.  Kobe, therefore, was merely the final straw.

Prior to Kobe, the IESG operated as a toothless facilitator of process.  Area 
Directors sought to offer advice to working groups and to keep the IAB happy. 
  The job had an impressive degree of insecurity, given the worries of 
offending working groups or the IAB.

Kobe resulted in exactly one change in the daily operation of the IETF:

      Authority to approve working group documents
      was moved from the IAB to the IESG.

That is it!  There was no other operational change.  No grand philosophy.  No 
re-specification of the nature of the work being done.

The only other change -- and it was a big one -- was creation of nomcom and 
the regular review and selection it provides.

Nothing like "responsibility to look after the overall technical health of the 
Internet" was assigned to the IESG.

However it certainly does appear that that is the role it has arrogated to itself.

Unfortunately, it is a frankly pretentious role to attempt:

      a) the IESG does not do the work of creating specifications and it has 
demonstrated no power to create that work; initiatives and work come from the 
community; and

      b) the IESG cannot enforce this supposed responsibility; the only people 
who can assert real "responsibility" for the technical health of the Internet 
are those that compose the Internet technical community in its entirety.  With 
respect to IETF-related work, that is the entire IETF community, not a 
selected subset.

      What that selected subset CAN do is to raise issues with
      the community and assess community consensus about those
      issues.

These are not trivial tasks.

Knowing when to raise an issue requires quite a bit of expertise.  So for 
example, the technical concerns from Larry Roberts' request come from 
significant expertise.

The problem is with believing that that expertise imparts authority to make an 
approval/rejection decision, rather than imparting the ability to prompt 
community review of the request.

As others keep pointing out, the IESG -- and for that matter the IETF -- has 
no power to prevent development, operations or use decisions. Those occur 
outside the IETF.

The IESG and the IETF has power only through its ability to pursuade.  To 
recruit rough consensus.

Pursuasion is very different power and process than decison-making "authority".

-- 
 
   d/

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  +1.408.246.8253
  dcrocker  a t ...
  WE'VE MOVED to:  www.bbiw.net

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 18:11:51 -0400

> Internet" was assigned to the IESG.

You seem to be forgetting something, Dave.

Every IETF participant is supposed to use his best engineering judgement
as to what is best for the Internet as a whole, when making technical 
decisions.

You seem to think that every IETF participant _except_ those on IESG
should do so.   You seem to think that everyone else should be able to
exercise their judgement but that the IESG should just serve as 
process facilitators and rubber stamp technical decisions that others
make.  IMNSHO, that's ridiculous.  We put good technical people on 
IESG so that they can make good technical decisions.

Keith

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From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 15:42:03 -0700

> make.  

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought the exercise of IETF judgement relied on 
rough consensus.  Having a subset of folks impose their own, personal 
preferences -- oh, sorry, their judgement -- is not using rough consensus to 
make ietf decisions.

In other words, Keith, I did not say what you are asserting.  I did not mean 
what you are asserting.

What I said is that the IETF is supposed to be the decision-maker, not the IESG.

-- 
 
   d/

  Dave Crocker

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From: Masataka Ohta <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2005 07:49:29 +0900

Bob Braden wrote:

> Such decisions must be made very, very

That's the problem.

Take it easy.

					Masataka Ohta

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2005 19:43:57 -0400

> rough consensus. 

I was talking about each individual using his own technical judgement to
make decisions entrusted to him.  But no, it's not the case that all
decisions made in IETF are made by rough consensus.  That applies to
decisions made within working groups, but working groups are only part
of our process.

> Having a subset of folks impose their own, personal 

In other words, when you make the decision, you're using your best
judgement. When someone on IESG makes a decision you do not like, it's
personal preference.

>From RFC 2026, section 6:

   The experienced collective judgment of the IESG
   concerning the technical quality of a specification proposed for
   elevation to or advancement in the standards track is an essential
   component of the decision-making process.

Ketih

---

From: David Hopwood <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2005 03:14:46 +0100

Dave Crocker wrote:
> Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought the exercise of IETF judgement relied 
> on rough consensus.  Having a subset of folks impose their own, personal 
> preferences -- oh, sorry, their judgement -- is not using rough 
> consensus to make ietf decisions.

Authors of RFCs that set up IANA registries are free to not use "IESG Approval"
as a criterion for allocations, or to allow alternative criteria. In fact
RFC 2780 does allow alternatives, including IETF Concensus. The sponsors of
this IPv6 option chose not to use them.

-- 
David Hopwood <[email-masked]>

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 17:50:06 -0700

> IESG so that they can make good technical decisions.

Keith,

The IESG can still exercise their best engineering judgment as
individuals, as the rest of us do.

The IESG role itself need not incorporate a privileged position from
which to wield that judgement. There's plenty left to do.

Joe

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 22:59:12 -0400

> which to wield that judgement. There's plenty left to do.

Joe,

The IESG has several duties that are defined in RFC 2026 and other 
documents.  These duties include using engineering judgment to determine 
whether documents meet criteria for standards track, or whether to bless 
certain kinds of protocol extensions.   All this notion of "privilege" 
misses the point - which is that we cannot ensure document or protocol 
quality without having some set of people decide whether or not a 
proposal is good enough.

If IESG people were to personally benefit from their exercise of this 
"privilege" you'd have a valid gripe.  But I don't recall ever seeing 
this happen.  If it does happen, I don't think it happens very often.

Keith

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From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 09:34:01 +0200

Keith Moore wrote:

> If IESG people were to personally benefit from their exercise
> of this "privilege" you'd have a valid gripe.  But I don't
> recall ever seeing this happen.  If it does happen, I don't
> think it happens very often.

Publishing mutually exclusive experimental RfCs simultaneously,
the first saying "abuses NOT RECOMENDED", the second saying
"SHOULD abuse the first", you say that this was a first case ?

                          Bye, Frank

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 17:19:44 +0200

> this happen.  If it does happen, I don't think it happens very often.

That's why the IESG ballot process has a 'recuse' option. It would be
legitimate for the community to ask why a particular AD had not recuse
him/herself in a specific case, but it's entirely clear that in general
the IESG is expected and required to make technical judgements.

    Brian

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 11:44:07 -0400

>>"privilege" you'd have a valid gripe.
> 
> 
> Personal gain is not the only motive; power can be its own motive. The
> gripes are validated by cases of abuse of privilege. 

If there's no obvious personal interest, whether a particular case is a 
valid exercise of discretion or an abuse of privilege is rather 
subjective.  For those who think a particular case is in the latter 
category, we have an appeals process.

Keith

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 08:22:54 -0700

> quality without having some set of people decide whether or not a

Re-reviewing 2026, in all places the IESG is noted as being largely
reactive to the community and guiding process.

Only sec 6.1.2 notes the application of technical judgement, but only
regarding maturity of the document and the standards level being sought
- specifically as "technical quality and clarity". It specifically notes
that (emphasis mine) "_independent_ technical review" can be solicited
if there are issues of its impact on the Internet architecture.

Right now, the IESG is conducting its own, non-independent technical
review - therein lies the issue, IMO.

Personal gain is not the only motive; power can be its own motive. The
gripes are validated by cases of abuse of privilege. Others have raised
a few such cases, e.g., where individuals didn't recuse themselves from
process when they had personal interest in the outcome of a doc.

> But I don't recall ever seeing

Neither are reasons not to prohibit it or address it when it occurs.

Joe

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 09:07:21 -0700

> category, we have an appeals process.

2026 separates process management from _independent_ technical review,
IMO for good reason.

History reminds us of the abuses of power that started with "act first,
appeal later".

Joe

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From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 12:20:21 -0400

> 2026 separates process management from _independent_ technical review,

I think you're reading more emphasis on independence than was intended 
in 2026.  But this is also subjective.

> History reminds us of the abuses of power that started with "act first,

The history of engineering also has lessons for those who act recklessly 
and refused to submit to external review.  The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 
for instance.

Shall we agree to disagree?  I don't think we're going to come to any 
agreement.

Keith

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From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 09:55:52 -0700

> and refused to submit to external review.  The Tacoma Narrows Bridge,

External reviews are what I'm favoring - external, independent reviews.

Joe

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 13:57:56 -0400

> External reviews are what I'm favoring - external, independent reviews.

so when IESG provides the external review, that's bad, but when someone
else does external review, that's good?  I disagree.  part of IESG's purpose
is to do review from a broad perspective.

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 11:07:19 -0700

Keith Moore wrote:
> else does external review, that's good?

Yup. When judges decide cases, that's bad. When juries do, that's good.

> I disagree.  part of IESG's purpose

On that we agree to disagree; I see no such charter implied or expressed
in 2026 - and the fact that it notes the need for _independent_
technical review is, well, notable.

Joe

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2005 14:46:17 -0400

> Yup. When judges decide cases, that's bad. When juries do, that's good.

not necessarily.  judges can be biased, which is unfortunate.  but so can juries,
and juries are more easily fooled and more likely to overlook important details.

Keith

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 17:29:07 +0200

Joe,

> if there are issues of its impact on the Internet architecture.

You are quoting very selectively. The context is rather different from
what you imply:

    In order to obtain all of the information necessary to make these
    determinations, particularly when the specification is considered by
    the IESG to be extremely important in terms of its potential impact
    on the Internet or on the suite of Internet protocols, the IESG may,
    at its discretion, commission an independent technical review of the
    specification.

In other words, the IESG gets to make the judgement call, but may choose
to get an independent review. This happens. As a matter of fact, I do
it every two weeks for all the drafts on the agenda, and Harald did it before
me. It's all public, see
http://www.alvestrand.no/ietf/gen/art/gen-art.html.

> review - therein lies the issue, IMO.

It's very clear that RFC 2026 sets the IESG up as the reviewer of
last resort (modulo the appeal process). I really don't understand
your issue except perhaps as a criticism of 2026. If the IESG isn't
to be the reviewer of last resort, who should it be?

> process when they had personal interest in the outcome of a doc.

I don't recall any such case being raised. Can you point to
the relevant messages in the archive?
> Neither are reasons not to prohibit it or address it when it occurs.

Conflict of interest is covered in RFC 3710 (which isn't a BCP, as it was
a first cut).

    Brian

---

From: Joe Touch <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 08:45:30 -0700

> Joe,
...
> to be the reviewer of last resort, who should it be?

An independent body - one that doesn't get to decide the importance of
its own review.

Perhaps it is a criticism of 2026 if there are so many varying
interpretations.

...
> Conflict of interest is covered in RFC 3710 (which isn't a BCP, as it was

Asking people to recuse themselves for conflict of interest is very
different from not putting the decision in front of them. While the
former is always required, it doesn't avoid the utility of the latter.

Joe