Subject: [Ntp] Murray Kucherawy's Discuss on draft-ietf-ntp-mode-6-cmds-09: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

From: Murray Kucherawy via Datatracker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 12:48:42 -0700

Murray Kucherawy has entered the following ballot position for
draft-ietf-ntp-mode-6-cmds-09: Discuss

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for more information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.

The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-ntp-mode-6-cmds/

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DISCUSS:
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I find myself in agreement with Eric Vyncke's remarks about a document claiming
to provide "current but historic" protocol details.  Is this because NTPv3 is
still in use?  But the title talks about NTPv4.  Shouldn't this document have
"Historic" status?  The shepherd writeup says that's the intent, but that's not
what the document's title page says.

Let's sort this out.

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COMMENT:
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I found the same typos Roman did.  A quick pass with a spell checker might
speed things through the RFC Editor slightly.

---

From: Daniel Franke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 16:45:56 -0400

The change from "Historic" to "Informational" was a
post-IETF-Last-Call switcheroo which I believe was performed without
appropriate consensus. I stand by "Historic" for the reasons discussed
in my secdir review.

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 3:48 PM Murray Kucherawy via Datatracker
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> _______________________________________________
> ntp mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ntp

---

From: Brian Haberman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 17:14:36 -0400

To be clear, the change occurred due to the discussion during IETF Last
Call. And the shepherd writeup was not updated to capture the result of
that discussion.

Harlan Stenn did point out that mode 6 is still in use by NTP
implementations, including NTPv4 implementations.

In response to Éric's feedback, I proposed the following changes to the
document:

Abstract
--------

OLD:
The goal of this document is to provide a current, but historic,
description of the control messages as described in RFC 1305 and any
additional commands implemented in NTP.

NEW:
The goal of this document is to provide an updated description of the
control messages described in RFC 1305 in order to conform with the
updated Network Time Protocol specification documented in RFC 5905.

Introduction
------------

OLD:
The control messages are described here as a historical record given
their use within NTPv4.

NEW:
The control messages are described here as a current reference for use
with an RFC 5905 implementation.

Regards,
Brian

---

From: Karen O'Donoghue <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2020 02:15:27 +0000

As stated elsewhere, the document was changed from Historic to Informational based on the IETF Last Call discussion. As shepherd, I forgot to update the writeup. It has been a contentious issue and at each major review point, we get suggestions to change it. My reading of the latest consensus was that most folks could live with either Historic or Informational. There were outliers. 

Karen

On 8/26/20, 3:48 PM, "Murray Kucherawy via Datatracker" <[email-masked]> wrote:

    Let's sort this out.

---

From: Karen O'Donoghue <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2020 02:18:57 +0000

Daniel,

I don't think it is fair for you to call this a "switcheroo" without appropriate consensus. At this stage, there were a number of folks including the author who could live with either Historic or Information, one who wanted Standards track, one who wanted Historic, and a few who said "not Historic". We have discussed this ad nauseum at this point. I am ready for the IESG to provide their guidance on what it should be. I believe there are arguments for both Historic and Informational... and many many emails written to debate this issue. 

Karen

On 8/26/20, 4:46 PM, "Daniel Franke" <[email-masked]> wrote:

---

From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2020 23:55:08 -0700

Just to be clear, the fact that the shepherd writeup wasn't updated after
the WG changed its mind on what status to go for isn't the one thing that
drew my ballot.  I noted a few other aspects I'd like to investigate here,
as did others.

Brian's proposed text seems like it might be an improvement.  I'll look at
it in context after tomorrow's telechat when I've had a chance to talk to
the other ADs that also commented on the document's status and intent.

-MSK

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 7:18 PM Karen O'Donoghue <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Daniel,
>
> I don't think it is fair for you to call this a "switcheroo" without
> appropriate consensus. At this stage, there were a number of folks
> including the author who could live with either Historic or Information,
> one who wanted Standards track, one who wanted Historic, and a few who said
> "not Historic". We have discussed this ad nauseum at this point. I am ready
> for the IESG to provide their guidance on what it should be. I believe
> there are arguments for both Historic and Informational... and many many
> emails written to debate this issue.
>
> Karen
>
>     > Please refer to
> https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html

---

From: Hal Murray <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2020 11:01:57 -0700

[email-masked] said:
> appropriate consensus. At this stage, there were a number of folks including
> the author who could live with either Historic or Information, one who wanted
> Standards track, one who wanted Historic, and a few who said "not Historic".
> We have discussed this ad nauseum at this point. I am ready for the IESG to
> provide their guidance on what it should be. I believe there are arguments
> for both Historic and Informational... and many many emails written to debate
> this issue.  

"Switcheroo" may be too strong, but the quantity and quality of the recent 
discussion indicates that something didn't go smoothly.

I think what happened is that most of the reviewing was done while we were 
thinking Historic and we didn't go back and review things again with a fresh 
outlook after changing from Historic to Informational.  (I'm as guilty as 
anybody for not noticing that sooner.)

Who is going to read the final document?  What is the goal?  I think the 
important next step is to get the abstract and introduction to line up with 
Informational.

The original plan was that mode 6 was to be standardized and mode 7 was vendor 
private.  In reality, both are optional and mode 6 exposes a lot of internal 
implementation details.  I'd call it somewhere between semi-standardized and 
vendor private.

ntpsec is a clone of the Mills reference implementation.  We have dropped mode 
7 and added/dropped/changed parts of mode 6 as seemed appropriate.  We are 
still compatible enough that ntpq mostly works cross-platform for the parts 
that both ends support.  While compatibility is nice, I think we would drop it 
if we saw a good way to clean up the code.

I'll send some detailed comments in another message.

-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.