Subject: RE: [nfsv4] Making v4.1 a reality

From: "Noveck, Dave" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 19:05:14 -0700

> The IETF process prefers to keep working groups narrowly focused.
> Hence a charter with specific accomplishments and a set of milestones
> leading to (hopefully) a successful and timely conclusion.

> However, the NFSv4 WG seems to have a constantly changing charter,

"constantly changing"?  Maybe I haven't kept up but I am not under
the impression that the charter has changed all that many times,
certainly not constantly or continually.

Brian and Spencer would know the truth of it.  But will they tell us?
Have you guys been continually changing the charter behind our backs?

I was under the impression that we were already chartered to do
stuff for minor versions.  Am I wrong or has that changed/been-changing?

> a smorgasbord of features, and no end in sight.  The NFSv4 WG
> should be left to finish what it started: NFSv4.0 - get it to Draft status.

> Wouldn't it be better to begin NFSv4.1 work within a new WG
> and leverage the IETF process to define what we'll do in it ?

Why would you suppose that that would be better?  It sounds like a way
of increasing overhead.  The fact of the matter is that the people
on this "new" working group would be essentially those that are on the
current working group, and the reason for that is that these are minor
versions, which have been prepared for by the minor versioning model
in RFC 3530, which is designed for modest incremental additions to v4.
We would naturally expect that the same set of people, more or less, 
would be involved.

With the smaller changes, the matter is particular clear.  There is a
problem with SECINFO, that Mike has discussed in this working group and
I presume we would have been fixed in this working group, had we recognized
it in time.  We cannot fix it in v4.0 because it is an OTW change but
we'd like to do it when we can, i.e. in v4.1.  Similarly with new 
recommended attributes.  If the new working group were really a new
working group (i.e. it didn't have about the same membership), would
they care about fixing the v4 working groups issues with the current
protocol.

Other items are a bit bigger, but the reality is the same.  The session
stuff is motivated in large part by the numerous sequence mechanisms
in v4.0, which despite their multiplicity, only do part of the job.
Instead, one mechanism takes care of sequencing/EOS, which is obviously
better (at least I think so).  We made a mistake.  When we figured out 
how to fix it it was to late in the cycle to make a change like that.  So
this is not as minor as an added attribute, but neither is it a wholesale
revision to the protocol.  It keeps most of the existing protocol intact.
That is, it is an incremental change, which is better dealt with by the
same group of people, whether they are officially constituted as the
v4 working or the v4.1 working group.

Given that this will be the same group of people (people will join or
lose interest but there needs to be an essential continuity), a separate
group administratively just seems like overhead.

> I think Dave's message would be a great kickoff for a BOF at
> the next IETF meeting.

I can't see how you can come to that conclusion.  I would be proposing
that we start a new working group and that the only significant items
on the agenda for the new working group, would be those that had been
discussed before April 1 (whenever this meeting is) in another working
group.  What kind of new working group is that?  Besides the fact that,
as Beepy has pointed out, a lot of the people involved in v4 and presumably
v4.1 don't often go to IETF meeting.  This may not be in accord with the
IETF process and spirit but it happens to be the ways things are.

A new working group only makes sense if it has a more expansive charter,
but in that case we would be waiting for v4.1 for a long time, longer than
we would find reasonable.  A new working group would make sense for NFSv5
but I doubt there would be enough interest in that to actually form a 
group.  We need a bit of time for people to forget the long slog to get
to v4 (five years for me).  I think most people are interested in smaller
incremental changes that build on v4.0.

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