Subject: Re: When to adopt a draft as a WG doc (was RE: "IETF work is done on the mailing lists")

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 01 Dec 2012 11:07:17 -0800

On 11/30/2012 3:29 PM, Barry Leiba wrote:
>>> There is no formal process that involves "adopting" anything.
>>
>> If you mean that we haven't documented a/the formal process, you are
>> correct.  If you mean that the IETF has not moved towards rather formal
>> steps for explicitly adopting working group drafts, I disagree.
> ...
>> Today, there is typically explicit text in the charter about adoption or
>> there is explicit wg approval.
>
> Indeed: we always have the option of having the charter limit
> management options.

Barry, I think you are trying to make a very different point from the 
one I am trying to make.

I think you are trying to assert that there is flexibility while I am 
trying to assert that there is common practice.  These are not mutually 
exclusive points.

My point about a formal process having emerged is that a chair/wg 
wanting to adopt a document has a well-established set of common 
practice.  It's not well (or at all) documented, but it exists in how 
working groups typically do things.

I was not trying to comment on the degree to which that process is 
mandated.  I acknowledge that fully documenting common practice, to make 
it "official" formal process, must combine both lines of concern.

d/
-- 
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 10:47:18 -0800

On 11/28/2012 8:00 AM, Adrian Farrel wrote:
> I led the discussion in the WG Chairs lunch at IETF 78 on this topic.
> Slides at http://wiki.tools.ietf.org/group/edu/wiki/IETF78#

Folks,

There is now an Internet Draft, based on Adrian's's slides, intended to 
document common practice in the adoption of working group drafts:

> Title:   Creating an IETF Working Group Draft
> Status:  http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-crocker-id-adoption
>
> Abstract:
>    The productive output of IETF working groups is documents, as
>    mandated by the working group's charter.  Working groups develop
>    these documents based on initial input of varying levels of maturity.
>    An initial working group draft might be a document already in wide
>    use, or it might be a blank sheet, wholly created by the workiing
>    group, or it might represent any level of maturity in between.  This
>    document discusses the process of creating formal working group
>    drafts that are targeted for publication.

Although it is not intended for a standards-track or bcp publication, it 
would be helpful to have discussion that moves the document to represent 
good agreement among the community.

d/

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 18:18:36 -0200

In Section 2.1, I would add in specifically-inappropriate criteria:

	- Accept an I+D for the merely fact to have a more structured
discussion in the WG.

Regards
::as

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 11:21:54 -0900

> 	- Accept an I+D for the merely fact to have a more structured

I'm actually not sure about that.  It seems to me that in the past
we've had working group documents which were not intended for
publication, and I think they'd fall under this criterion.  I may
be misremembering.  At any rate I'm not sure I see the value in
ruling these out.

Melinda

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 18:25:36 -0200

So it is ok to have bad ideas as I+D, possibly harmful for the Internet
just to have a structured discussion?

Regards,
as

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 12:32:28 -0800

>> Status:  http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-crocker-id-adoption

Many apologies.  In my haste, I submitted a version of the draft that 
was missing a number of important changes.

The latest version is now posted:

 > Filename:	 draft-crocker-id-adoption
 > Revision:	 01
...

d/

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 14:36:50 -0800

>just to have a structured discussion?

Yes.

I'll comment on draft-crocker-id-adoption-01.

Section 1 is fine.  I'll suggest not amending the BCP (see the last 
round of RFCs about IPR as an example).

In Section 1.1:

   "and Section 8.3 of [RFC4677]"

I suggest using the web page ( http://www.ietf.org/tao.html ).

In Section 2.1:

   "No formal specification for working group 'adoption' of a draft
    exists;"

Procedures may be a better fit.

   "*  What is the position of the working group chairs, concerning
       the draft?"

I suggest removing this from basic considerations to keep matters easy.

   "REMINDER:   Once a working group adopts a draft, the document is
       owned by the working group and can be changed however the working
       group decides, within the bounds of IETF process and the working
       group charter.  It is a responsibility of the working group chairs
       to ensure that document authors make modifications in accord with
       working group rough consensus."

 From the BCP:

   "The Document Editor is responsible for ensuring that the contents
    of the document accurately reflect the decisions that have been
    made by the working group."

I suggest rephrasing the last sentence reminder as:

   It is a responsibility of the document authors to make modifications in
   accord with working group rough consensus.

In Section 2.2:

  "and Section 5.2 of [RFC4677]"

See above comment about the Tao.

   "Thus, when it is not completely obvious what the opinion of the
    working group is, working group chairs should poll the working group
    to find out."

I'll highlight part of a comment [1] from Geoff Huston:

   'such expressions of disinterest in adopting the draft by some
    strange twist of logic are portrayed to point to "interest in
    discussing the document"'

If you use a poll it ends up as a 'yes/no'.  The problem zone is when 
there are valid arguments on both sides.  To put it simply there can 
always be a good reason not to adopt a draft (see thread at 
http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/sidr/current/msg04922.html ).

You could treat the decision of adoption as secondary and have 
opinions about the "problem to be solved" as the primary intent.  You 
could then use the following:

   Is there strong working group support to work on the draft?

In my humble opinion it is important to tell the group up-front what 
is being decided.  I cannot think of text to suggest.

One of the problems is that there is an assumption that the text 
being adopted has consensus.  This leads to discussions about what 
text must be changed for the wg-00 version to be acceptable.  The 
adoption turns into a review of the draft.  There is ample time to 
produce changes as the WG will be working on the draft if it adopts it.

In Section 2.3 "Choosing Editors".

In Section 4:

   "I can't find an explicit description of Individual vs. Working
    group draft.  Some pages/docs imply the distinction, but not
    define it."

The Last Call is longer (see 
http://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/ad-sponsoring-docs.html ).  It may 
be easier to drop Section 4 as the draft discusses about "IETF 
Working Group Draft".

Regards,
-sm

P.S. An I-D encourages the author to structure what he/she would like 
to communicate.

1. http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg76053.html

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 21:35:31 -0200

Well, I think we shouldn't.

	I would prefer to have the I+D as non-wg item until we are sure that we
are willing to support it as RFC.

/as

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:50:06 +0900

> just to have a structured discussion?

and so that the chairs have the option of changing editorship to turn
them into good ideas.

randy

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2012 08:52:41 +0900

> are willing to support it as RFC.

i thought that was wglc.  but i am a dinosaur.

randy

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 21:56:23 -0200

> and so that the chairs have the option of changing editorship to turn
    That's is true. But I would prefer to accept a I+D as WG item until
we are sure that we are somehow committed to follow the path
described/proposed in the document. Accepting the document assuming that
chairs are going to turn bad ideas to good in my opinio is not good.

Regards
as

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 22:04:55 -0200

> i thought that was wglc.  but i am a dinosaur.
    What I meant is that accepting the I+D as WG document clears the
path of the bad idea to become RFC somehow or at least to waste a lot of
time fighting against it.

    I have seen a lot of I+D that are discussed a lot and are never
accepted as WG items (even though the problem is in scope of the
charter) because it is a bad proposal according to consensus. Eventually
the idea dies. Which in my opinion is good (unless we accepted to
document why it is bad, but that is another history).

    Accepting an I+D as WG item just "because we need to discuss the
topic" or because of "a more structured discussion" would have brought a
lot of rejected ideas as WG documents.

Regards,
as

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2012 09:06:33 +0900

> What I meant is that accepting the I+D as WG document clears the path
> of the bad idea to become RFC somehow or at least to waste a lot of

we used to call that 'discussion' as opposed to ppt presentation.  and
discussion is what wgs were for, see other thread.

randy, who is way above his intended posting limit

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 15:12:15 -0900

> chairs are going to turn bad ideas to good in my opinio is not good.

A couple of points:  the main one is that I have absolutely no
idea where this "bad ideas" thing is coming from, because there
are a number of reasons why we wouldn't want to publish a document
other than that it contains bad ideas and I'm going to question
both your association of not-working-group drafts with bad ideas
and working group drafts with good ones ('cause, seriously, folks ...).

But the other one is that you seem to be using "working group
draft" and "working group item (deliverable?)" interchageably, and
I really don't think they're the same thing at all.

Melinda

---

From: Arturo Servin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 22:24:01 -0200

Perhaps I did, but I am talking about Working Group Drafts

"1.1.  What is a Working Group Draft?

   Documents under development in the IETF community are distributed as
   Internet Drafts (I-D).  Working groups use this mechanism for
   producing their official output, per Section 7.2 of [RFC2418] and
   Section 8.3 of [RFC4677] and [ID-Info].  The convention for
   identifying an I-D formally under the ownership of a working group is
   by the inclusion of "ietf" in the second field of the I-D filename
   and the working group name in the third field, per Section 7 of
   [ID-Guidelines].  That is:

                        draft-ietf-<wgname>-...

"

	from draft-crocker-id-adoption

/as

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 15:26:23 -0900

> 	Perhaps I did, but I am talking about Working Group Drafts

So am I.  I have no problem with a working group adopting a document
as a tool in the development of their deliverables, either as a place
to keep notes or as a document with a separate editor to eventually
be folded into a deliverable.  You'll note that the text you cite
does not restrict working group drafts to deliverables.

Melinda

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 22:05:06 -0800

Hi Arturo,
>chairs are going to turn bad ideas to good in my opinio is not good.

My guess is that you will be approached to chair a WG at some point.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2012 11:15:31 +0000

On 03/12/2012 00:24, Arturo Servin wrote:
>    Internet Drafts (I-D).  

Melinda and/or Randy have said what I want to say, but as a factual
clarification to the draft, the above statement is only part of the
truth. Documents under development in the IRTF are distributed as
I-Ds, and so are documents about random subjects by random people,
especially those intended as independent submissions to the RFC Editor.
So a more complete statement is

 Documents under development inside or outside the IETF community are
 distributed as Internet Drafts (I-D).

    Brian

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 08:48:09 -0500

> distributed as Internet Drafts (I-D).

Even better:

The I-D repository is managed by the IETF Secretariat under the direction of the IESG, but the repository is used by the IETF, IRTF, IAB, and the broader Internet community to distribute documents.

Russ

---

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 13:58:38 -0000

We could certainly say this. It is a true statement.

However, the document is trying to talk about WG I-Ds, not to provide a general
description of everything the IETF and RFC Editor ever does.

Is it false to say:

In the context of this document, is it interesting to say:
  The I-D repository is managed by the IETF Secretariat under the direction of
the
  IESG, but the repository is used by the IETF, IRTF, IAB, and the broader
Internet
  community to distribute documents.

My answers are "No" and "No".

Adrian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Russ
> Housley
> Sent: 03 December 2012 13:48
> To: IETF
> Subject: Re: Creating an IETF Working Group Draft
> 
> The I-D repository is managed by the IETF Secretariat under the direction of
the
> IESG, but the repository is used by the IETF, IRTF, IAB, and the broader
Internet
> community to distribute documents.
> 
> Russ

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Dec 2012 06:09:36 -0800

...
> My answers are "No" and "No".

+1

The existing text was tailored to lay foundation for what comes next, 
not to provide a general introduction to I-Ds.  The suggested changes 
add unnecessary verbosity.  Anyone needing a 'complete' understanding of 
I-Ds can consult the offered citations.

d/

---

From: Melinda Shore <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2012 11:30:49 -0900

> just to have a structured discussion?

Who said that?

Melinda

---

From: "Fred Baker (fred)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 18:24:48 +0000

On Nov 29, 2012, at 12:03 PM, SM wrote:

> According to some RFC:
> 
>  "All relevant documents to be discussed at a session should be published
>   and available as Internet-Drafts at least two weeks before
>   a session starts."
> 
> If the above was followed there shouldn't be any draft submissions during the week a meeting is held. 

Not sure I agree with that. A draft submitted during the indicated week isn't up for discussion that week, but it may easily be the start of a mailing list discussion for a subsequent meeting, or it may be an update to a draft as an outcome of discussion. I see both pretty regularly.