Subject: Re: Things that I think obvious...

From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 07:12:39 -0700 (PDT)

Harald --

After initially reading your message, statements 1, 2 and 3 seemed so
"obvious" that I forgot to reply.  But I guess that was missing
the point, eh?  This is probably one of those rare times were a "Yup, me
too" statement is useful.

So, to get it on the record:  I agree with statements 1, 2 and 3.

Caveat:  I contributed to RFC 3716, so perhaps it is "obvious" that I
would agree with statement 3.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Harald said:

I thought it would make sense for me to mention a few things I have
regarded as "obvious" in this discussion - just to make sure nobody comes
along later and says "you can't draw a conclusion based on that - while I
agree with you, there might be others who don't" or something like that.
Clarity is good.

It is very hard to state these things in a way where nobody can quibble
with the formulations, but I will try anyway.

1 - The IETF exists, and it is the IETF community.

Even though we have carefully avoided defining its boundaries, I believe
that we all believe that the IETF exists. And it's obvious that if the
people who do the technical work leave, the IETF is nothing.
So the IETF is the community.

2 - The IETF leadership is the IESG and IAB.

Some jobs are clearly given to the IESG in our documents; other jobs are
clearly given to the IAB. Some jobs are not mentioned at all.
As part of the process of change, the community may select other people or
create new bodies for other types of leadership.
And the IAB and IESG has to be in a continuing dialogue with the community
in order to figure out what the right things to do are.
But there is at present no other leadership function selected by the
community.

3 - The community has accepted the problem description and principles laid
out in RFC 3716.

The most common reaction I have had from people who have read RFC 3716 is
"it's obvious, now that you say it". And it would be hard for anyone who
reads the IETF list or the IETF-announce list, or the most recent
plenaries, to be completely unaware of its existence, or that we are
basing further work on its conclusions.
So - if there was significant disagreement with its conclusions - I'd have
expected to hear that before now.

As I said - I *think* these things are fairly obvious. But it might still
be reasonable to check that other people agree.

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