Subject: Re: [IAB] Last Call: Affirmation of the Modern Global Standards Paradigm

From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2012 12:05:09 -0700

[BA] The reply below represents my personal opinion. 

Dave Crocker said:

> It's true that this was not put into an Internet Draft. Apart from 
> that, we seem to be doing the right thing: - The IAB Chair announced 
> the text and the intent to sign it on 1 Aug. 
 
Two weeks is normal process for spontaneous consensus calls? 
 
When did the community approve that change in process? 

[BA]  Thanks for raising this issue, Dave.  

A document that describes the processes utilized by Modern SDOs should
probably take extra care to follow the applicable process.  

Below find my best guess as to what that is. 

At one point the suggestion was to publish the statement as an RFC; had this
been done, the procedures to be followed would have

been governed by the procedures for publication on the selected stream.  For
example, if the document were to have been published 

as an Informational RFC within the IAB stream, then RFC 4845 would apply.
Section 3 states:

   5.  The chair of the IAB issues an IETF-wide Call for Comment on the

       IETF Announce mailing list.  The comment period is normally no

       shorter than four weeks.

However, AFAIK this document is not being considered for publication as an
RFC (at least within the IAB stream), so RFC 4845 does not apply.  

> He asked for comments. 
 
No he didn't: 
 
"Please send strong objections..." 
 
This asserts a forceful bias against general comments and criticisms by 
establishing a very high threshhold for relevance. While no, no one is 
prevented from other kinds of postings, the bias is nonetheless established.

[BA] Specifically, comments were requested to be sent to the IAB and/or to
the IETF list.   In the first iteration of comments, the IAB mailing list
was given as the place to send comments, and a number of comments were
received which resulted in changes to the document.  While it might be
considered inconvenient, similarly persuasive comments could be received in
this round as well.  

As noted in the announcement, the intent is for the document to be signed by
the IETF and IAB Chairs, both of whom are members of the IAB.  Were the
process followed in approval of IAB statements to be applied here, then IAB
consensus would be required for approval.  In making up their minds, members
of the IAB can consider any relevant information, including the comments in
this and the earlier round.  Personally, in making up my mind I would look
at the comments on their merit, ignoring the threshold in the announcement.