Subject: Re: Terms used in rules-update-07

From: Todd Glassey <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 12:54:50 -0700 (GMT-07:00)

-----Original Message-----

>> 
>> Well, first let me say that ADs who sponsor documents are
>> already concerned about perceived conflict of interest, 

Which is a  good thing since there is no Hold-Harmless Agreement anywhere - and apparently this makes the AD's  civilly liable for damages their actions cause within the IETF, including those of he WG Chairs they are responsible for overseeing. This isnt my rules - they are theeeeeeeee general rules of liability. Without some agreement setting liability aside - the whole house of cards could easily come donw IMHO.

>> so
>> your second bullet is pretty unlikely for "employment by the
>> same company" unless their relationship within the company is
>> quite distant and the topic one where AD sponsorship is common
>> (Even in some of those cases, co-ADs are asked to consider the
>> document instead).

The problem is that there is no oversight policyto prevent this type of problem. And Technical People are as greedy and as unscrupulous as any other group of people.

>
>Ted, my point was not that this happened.  My general experience
>with WG integrity has been between "excellent" and "beyond all
>reasonable expectations".  

Then you havent spent much time in the Security AD where this type of abuse runs rampant. Especiallyt in PKIX.

> The point was that, since there is no
>written model for AD sponsorship, the above is not prohibited,
>there are no public/published guidelines, and we had best avoid
>loading more meaning onto that track without considerably
>clarifying what it means.

John - detail sets you free - open loopholes kill us all.

>
>> And that raises my second issue:  we have lots of history that
>> says keeping working groups around forever creates problems,
>> so there are topic areas where the IETF work product is the
>> foundation of the industry use of a protocol but there is no
>> active WG.  What an AD should look for in community review 

The IETF's real problem here is that its community wants to "protect the Internet" and that is not the Role of the IETF. The IETF is not the keeping of the Internet, nor is ISOC. Much to everyone's dismay the Internet is a privately operated convienience except for the CIPR/NIPR circuits and other federally subsidized wire services.

>> of
>> a document in some of those cases is well defined (in the URN
>> NID case, for example, explicit review is called out by the
>> urn-nid list; media type review, explicit review is called for
>> by ietf-types list, etc.).  In others, you have the mailing
>> list of the closed working group to go on (e.g. LDAPEXT for
>> LDAP extensions) and potentially a directorate (LDAP has one
>> such).  For standards-track document, ADs should (and I
>> believe usually do) consult the relevant lists (even if there
>> are no WGs) as well as putting out an IETF Last Call.
>
>This is fine.    I would identify most, probably all, of the
>thing you list as byproducts of the standards track.   If they
>were the only sorts of documents that got AD sponsorship for
>publication, we would not be having this discussion (at least as
>far as I'm concerned).  But AD sponsorship has also been
>advocated for documents that would normally be handled as
>independent submissions --that have no direct relationship to
>work done in the IETF, ever-- just because it is faster and more
>efficient.  I think that, if we try to attach "IETF product"
>terminology to those sorts of things, we are in trouble.
>
>Again, if there were clear criteria...
>
>> We could, I believe, explicitly require an IETF Last Call for
>> all Informational and Experimental documents that are AD
>> sponsored; at the moment, it is a judgement call by the AD
>> based on what level of community review something needs or has
>> already received.  If we go that route, though, I think we
>> have to be pretty aware of what it means for review cycles and
>> delay.   
>
>Yes.
>
>> We've wandered off topic for this WG, though, and I suggest
>> continuing in private email or on [email-masked].
>
>But, if ADs are going to sponsor documents and that fact makes
>them "IETF products", and the rules for IETF products are
>different than those for other RFCs, it seems to me that is
>still on-topic for this WG.
>
>   john
>
>
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