Subject: Re: [apps-discuss] Startup of the APPSAWG

From: "Martin J. Dürst" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2010 18:03:31 +0900

Two points:

On 2010/10/31 18:23, Barry Leiba wrote:
> As y'all may have seen, the IESG approved the creation of the
> Applications Area Working Group (appsawg), and appointed Jiankang Yao
> and me as working group chairs.  The charter is here:
>     http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/appsawg-charter
> In order to get things started, we need to do two things:
>
> 1. Set up procedures for how the working group will operate.

I think we shouldn't spend too much time on this. If we can come up with 
some general guidelines over time based on actual cases that worked and 
didn't, then fine. But working more on process than on actual work is 
counterproductive.

> 2. Choose some documents to work on.
>
> To that end, we'll be having the first face-to-face meeting of the
> appsawg during (as part of) the Applications Area open meeting at IETF
> 79, in the Monday morning slot (9 to 11:30 a.m., 8 Nov).  Email
> discussion related to appsawg will happen on this mailing list, the
> apps-discuss list.
>
> For item 1, here's a set of sub-items the chairs think we need to decide:
>
> 1a. What criteria will we use to decide that a document should be
> handled by appsawg?  Implicit in this is how we decide that the
> document doesn't belong in an existing working group, and that the
> authors shouldn't be working on forming a new one.  I note that it may
> be the case that the ADs are already, by suggesting a document to us,
> advising that they don't want a new working group for the work.  I
> suggest that sometimes, part of this working group's job may be to
> push back on that and say, "We disagree.  The scope of this work is
> beyond what appsawg should be taking up, and you should reconsider
> your advice to the authors."

> As for initial documents, the ADs have suggested the following ones,
> and if there's time in Beijing to go over them and have some initial
> discussion about adoption, we'll put them on the agenda.  Please try
> to review them before then.
>
> 2a. draft-merrick-jms-uri
> 2b. draft-nottingham-http-portal
> 2c. draft-faltstrom-5892bis (update of IDNA to handle Unicode 6.0)

Especially in respect to 2c (but also 2a), while there is no IDNAbis WG 
anymore, the mailing list of the WG is still alive. As far as I know, 
that mailing list has more experts (in particular also from the Unicode 
side) subscribed than the apps-discuss list (i.e. this WG). So one way 
to reword these questions would be:

- Is there a mailing list (maybe of a past WG) that can provide better 
review than this WG?
- How can we make sure we get that review?
- Would it be better in some cases to defer completely to such a mailing 
list (and handle the document as an individual submission)?

For 2b, this question is how to get review from an existing WG.

Regards,    Martin.

> Comments on any of this prior to IETF 79 are also, of course, welcome.
>
> Barry and Jiankang, your friendly neighbourhood chairs
> _______________________________________________
> apps-discuss mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss
>
>

-- 
#-# Martin J. Dürst, Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-# http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp   mailto:[email-masked]

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:08:56 +0000

Hi Martin,

Martin J. Dürst wrote:

> I think we shouldn't spend too much time on this. If we can come up 
> with some general guidelines over time based on actual cases that 
> worked and didn't, then fine. But working more on process than on 
> actual work is counterproductive.

I tend to agree. However any rules currently in force should be clearly 
stated on the mailing list, so that people know what to expect.

> Especially in respect to 2c (but also 2a), while there is no IDNAbis 
> WG anymore, the mailing list of the WG is still alive. As far as I 
> know, that mailing list has more experts (in particular also from the 
> Unicode side) subscribed than the apps-discuss list (i.e. this WG). So 
> one way to reword these questions would be:
>

If there are active mailing lists for closed WGs, we should be asking 
for reviews there. However, this doesn't mean that all WGLCs will only 
be issued on such mailing lists, they need to happen on 
[email-masked].

> - Would it be better in some cases to defer completely to such a 
> mailing list (and handle the document as an individual submission)?

My personal answer to this is likely to be "no". With several individual 
submissions I handled which were reviewed on such IETF mailing lists, I 
got comments from some of the reviewers (mostly from outside of IESG) 
that any claims of rough consensus on such mailing lists are not valid, 
due to the fact that the document is not a WG document. While I 
personally disagreed with such comments, I had no way of arguing against 
them.

I.e., I don't believe that "that document should be processed as an 
individual submission because there is an existing IETF mailing list for 
a closed WG" should be a valid outcome.