Subject: Re: [PEPPERMINT] PEPPERMINT Digest, Vol 10, Issue 18

From: "Cartwright, Kenneth" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:07:34 -0400

First off, it's good to know that the off-line discussions were
"serious".  :-)  Secondly, I went back a couple weeks through the
PEPPERMINT emails in my inbox but did not find mention of this subject
of the term "provisioning" being problematic.  SO I guess this subject
occurred entirely offline.  If not, can you please refer to an
approximate date where this was captured in a PEPPERMINT email, perhaps
I missed it.  If the discussion was entirely off-line can you please
just provide a sentence or two on the reasoning?

I would guess that the reasoning may be something along these lines:

1) The term provisioning is ill defined.
2) The term provisioning may be interpreted by some as too limiting or
too broad.
3) Depending on ones definition of "provisioning", the WG may work on
items that have nothing to do with provisioning.

However, while the above points may be accurate, I'm not sure how
changing the WG name from "PEPPERMINT" to "DRINKS" helps in a meaningful
manner.  It seems that the content of the WG Charter is more important
in providing the necessary clarity than the name of the WG.

In short, my $.02 is that changing the name of the WG from PEPPERMINT to
DRINKS is just fine.  But, more importantly, I'd like to see how this
name change impacts the content of the Charter.

Ken

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Subject: PEPPERMINT Digest, Vol 10, Issue 18

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Today's Topics:

   1.  New name for the WG... consensus desired (Richard Shockey)

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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 21:18:13 -0400
From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Subject: [PEPPERMINT] New name for the WG... consensus desired
To: <[email-masked]>
Message-ID: <021601c89aa8$c0a9b5f0$41fd21d0$@us>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="US-ASCII"

In some serious off line discussions, there was a suggestion that
PEPPERMINT might not be the most appropriate WG name since the concept
of provisioning has very specific context in teleco world.

What we are dealing with is data exchanges.

Hense the suggestion of a new WG name 

DRINKS 

Data for Reachability of Inter/tra-NetworK SIP

Personally I think this is a perfect IETF WG name and meets all the
criterion of cuteness, banality, etc. and extremely appropriate given
the venue of a probably first meeting ..Dublin .

We'd like to get a consensus if the change of name is appropriate.

Richard Shockey
Director, Member of the Technical Staff
NeuStar
46000 Center Oak Plaza - Sterling, VA 20166 PSTN Office +1 571.434.5651
PSTN Mobile: +1 703.593.2683 <mailto:richard(at)shockey.us>
<mailto:richard.shockey(at)neustar.biz>

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---

From: Hadriel Kaplan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:05:10 -0400

Right, so it was entirely off-line, and the reason I started it that way was because I didn't want to cause any possible disruption to this group getting its charter approved and WG formed.  So I basically consulted with the BoF chairs and a few other folks to see if they felt (1) it wasn't important what the name was, or (2) if it would be better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Normally I wouldn't care about such things, because like you, I know the charter is what matters.  I like the current charter just fine.  But in the last 3 weeks I have had to explain to at least 6 people that Peppermint is not provisioning, or at least not how they mean that word. (of the 6 people, 3 attend the IETF and are active in the RAI area)  So methinks it safer/better if we can avoid that term and its baggage.

We could argue about what the term truly means, and whether the current charter truly means it, and so on.  But if we just remove the term and leave the charter as is, we can argue about the specific requirements and proposals based on the charter in the WG after it's formed, rather than that particular term's definition now or even then. (because I bet if you ask two people what it means you'll get three answers :)

As to the DRINK vs. PEPPERMINT - I also came up with alternative expansions for "Peppermint" that avoided the term provisioning, as well as a few alternative new names, and DRINKS seemed to wet people's thirst for a new name.  ;)

-hadriel

> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On
> Behalf Of Cartwright, Kenneth
> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 11:08 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [PEPPERMINT] PEPPERMINT Digest, Vol 10, Issue 18
>

---

From: "Richard Shockey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:45:17 -0400

Thanks Hadriel ..for this public explanation. As I pointed out earlier this
distinction of provisioning vs data exchanges seems semantically trivial but
is not. Your experiences in describing the WG clearly indicated a potential
problem.

The whole conversation is important to Daryl who hopefully will have v2 of
the draft charter shortly.

I would very much like to wrap up the charter discussion very shortly so we
can submit something to the RAI AD's in a timely fashion.

In any event we can submit both WG names to the IESG but I have a suspicion
which one the will prefer. :-) 

>  On Behalf Of Hadriel Kaplan
>  Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 6:05 PM
>  To: Cartwright, Kenneth; [email-masked]
>  Right, so it was entirely off-line, and the reason I started it that
>  way was because I didn't want to cause any possible disruption to this
>  group getting its charter approved and WG formed.  So I basically
>  consulted with the BoF chairs and a few other folks to see if they
>  felt (1) it wasn't important what the name was, or (2) if it would be
>  better to let sleeping dogs lie.
>  
>  Normally I wouldn't care about such things, because like you, I know
>  the charter is what matters.  I like the current charter just fine.
>  But in the last 3 weeks I have had to explain to at least 6 people
>  that Peppermint is not provisioning, or at least not how they mean
>  that word. (of the 6 people, 3 attend the IETF and are active in the
>  RAI area)  So methinks it safer/better if we can avoid that term and
>  its baggage.
>  
>  We could argue about what the term truly means, and whether the
>  current charter truly means it, and so on.  But if we just remove the
>  term and leave the charter as is, we can argue about the specific
>  requirements and proposals based on the charter in the WG after it's
>  formed, rather than that particular term's definition now or even
>  then. (because I bet if you ask two people what it means you'll get
>  three answers :)
>  
>  As to the DRINK vs. PEPPERMINT - I also came up with alternative
>  expansions for "Peppermint" that avoided the term provisioning, as
>  well as a few alternative new names, and DRINKS seemed to wet people's
>  thirst for a new name.  ;)
>  
>  -hadriel
>  
>

---

From: "Cartwright, Kenneth" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:16:01 -0400

Thanks for this background.  That helps somewhat.  So once I see the
next version of the charter I'll better understand what you mean by the
statement "Peppermint is not provisioning, or at least not how they mean
that word".  This statement certainly surprises me, which means that
there is certainly a disconnect somewhere (and maybe that "somewhere" is
me) that needs to be addressed.  The presentations and discussions that
I've observed at both of the BOFs, and my reading of the charter, makes
it clear, to me at least, that provisioning (as I use the word) is
definitely in the scope of the WG.  If it's not then that is, needless
to say, a vital item for the charter to make clear, imho.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: Hadriel Kaplan [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 6:05 PM
To: Cartwright, Kenneth; [email-masked]
Subject: RE: PEPPERMINT Digest, Vol 10, Issue 18

Right, so it was entirely off-line, and the reason I started it that way
was because I didn't want to cause any possible disruption to this group
getting its charter approved and WG formed.  So I basically consulted
with the BoF chairs and a few other folks to see if they felt (1) it
wasn't important what the name was, or (2) if it would be better to let
sleeping dogs lie.

Normally I wouldn't care about such things, because like you, I know the
charter is what matters.  I like the current charter just fine.  But in
the last 3 weeks I have had to explain to at least 6 people that
Peppermint is not provisioning, or at least not how they mean that word.
(of the 6 people, 3 attend the IETF and are active in the RAI area)  So
methinks it safer/better if we can avoid that term and its baggage.

We could argue about what the term truly means, and whether the current
charter truly means it, and so on.  But if we just remove the term and
leave the charter as is, we can argue about the specific requirements
and proposals based on the charter in the WG after it's formed, rather
than that particular term's definition now or even then. (because I bet
if you ask two people what it means you'll get three answers :)

As to the DRINK vs. PEPPERMINT - I also came up with alternative
expansions for "Peppermint" that avoided the term provisioning, as well
as a few alternative new names, and DRINKS seemed to wet people's thirst
for a new name.  ;)

-hadriel

> On Behalf Of Cartwright, Kenneth

> approximate date where this was captured in a PEPPERMINT email, 
> perhaps I missed it.  If the discussion was entirely off-line can you 
> please just provide a sentence or two on the reasoning?
>

> changing the WG name from "PEPPERMINT" to "DRINKS" helps in a 
> meaningful manner.  It seems that the content of the WG Charter is 
> more important in providing the necessary clarity than the name of the
WG.
>
> In short, my $.02 is that changing the name of the WG from PEPPERMINT 
> to DRINKS is just fine.  But, more importantly, I'd like to see how 
> this name change impacts the content of the Charter.
>
> Ken
>

> Director, Member of the Technical Staff NeuStar 46000 Center Oak Plaza

> - Sterling, VA 20166 PSTN Office +1 571.434.5651 PSTN Mobile: +1 
> 703.593.2683 <mailto:richard(at)shockey.us>

---

From: Hadriel Kaplan <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:36:33 -0400

Right, but I'm not implying provisioning isn't in scope - I'm implying provisioning isn't constraining the scope.  In other words, provisioning is a specific subset form of "data exchange", and "data exchange" does not have to be provisioning.

To make this more concrete, I'll use an example: ESPP.  Not that we are or are not going to use any form of ESPP, but it was presented as one possible example to show that the chartered work is technically do-able.  ESPP, as defined, certainly could be used for true "provisioning" as most people mean that term.  But the minute the information pushed/pulled by ESPP is not authoritative to the client - i.e., if it can be modified, post-processed, manipulated, filtered, ignored, etc., it ceases to be provisioning in the common sense of the word.  (or at least causes confusion to people who use "provisioning" in the authoritative sense, as one would do from an Element Management System, for example)  And ESPP may well have that lesser-control semantic when really used.

Thus, I think it's safer if we ignore the loaded term, and just define the actual requirements we want/need in the WG itself.

-hadriel

> Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 12:16 PM
> To: [email-masked]

---

From: "Cartwright, Kenneth" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:43:41 -0400

"I'm not implying provisioning isn't in scope - I'm implying
provisioning isn't constraining the scope"

Ahhh, perfect.  Got it.

Ken.

-----Original Message-----
From: Hadriel Kaplan [mailto:[email-masked]] 
Sent: Friday, April 11, 2008 4:37 PM
To: Cartwright, Kenneth; [email-masked]
Subject: RE: PEPPERMINT Digest, Vol 10, Issue 18

Right, but I'm not implying provisioning isn't in scope - I'm implying
provisioning isn't constraining the scope.  In other words, provisioning
is a specific subset form of "data exchange", and "data exchange" does
not have to be provisioning.

To make this more concrete, I'll use an example: ESPP.  Not that we are
or are not going to use any form of ESPP, but it was presented as one
possible example to show that the chartered work is technically do-able.
ESPP, as defined, certainly could be used for true "provisioning" as
most people mean that term.  But the minute the information
pushed/pulled by ESPP is not authoritative to the client - i.e., if it
can be modified, post-processed, manipulated, filtered, ignored, etc.,
it ceases to be provisioning in the common sense of the word.  (or at
least causes confusion to people who use "provisioning" in the
authoritative sense, as one would do from an Element Management System,
for example)  And ESPP may well have that lesser-control semantic when
really used.

Thus, I think it's safer if we ignore the loaded term, and just define
the actual requirements we want/need in the WG itself.

-hadriel

> next version of the charter I'll better understand what you mean by 
> the statement "Peppermint is not provisioning, or at least not how 
> they mean that word".  This statement certainly surprises me, which 
> means that there is certainly a disconnect somewhere (and maybe that 
> "somewhere" is
> me) that needs to be addressed.  The presentations and discussions 
> that I've observed at both of the BOFs, and my reading of the charter,

> makes it clear, to me at least, that provisioning (as I use the word) 
> is definitely in the scope of the WG.  If it's not then that is, 
> needless to say, a vital item for the charter to make clear, imho.
>
> Ken
>