Subject: Re: WG Review: Dynamic Host Configuration (dhc)

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 18:17:02 -0700

Hello,
At 09:53 30-08-2013, The IESG wrote:
>The Dynamic Host Configuration (dhc) working group in the Internet Area
>of the IETF is undergoing rechartering. The IESG has not made any

[snip]

>Milestones:
>   Done     - WG Last Call on DHCP Options for Internet Storage Name
>Service (draft-ietf-dhc-isnsoption-03.txt)
>   Done     - WG Last Call on Load Balancing for DHCPv6
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-loadb-02.txt)
>   Done     - WG Last Call on Time Configuration Options for DHCPv6
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-timeconfig-01.txt)
>   Done     - WG Last Call on IPv6 Prefix Options for DHCPv6
>(draft-troan-dhcpv6-opt-prefix-delegation-02.txt)
>   Done     - WG Last Call on DNS Configuration options for DHCPv6
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-dnsconfig-01.txt)
>   Done     - WG Last Call on NIS Configuration Options for DHCPv6
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-nisconfig-01.txt)
>   Done     - Resubmit draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-28.txt to IESG
>   Done     - Identify DHCPv4 authentication design team
>   Done     - Identify DHCPv4 specification review design team
>   Done     - Identify DHCPv4 relay agent message authentication design
>team
>   Done     - Submit DHCP Options for Internet Storage Name Service to
>IESG (draft-ietf-dhc-isnsoption)
>   Done     - Submit DNS Configuration options for DHCPv6 to IESG
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-dnsconfig)
>   Done     - Submit NIS Configuratio Options for DHCPv6 to IESG
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-nisconfig)
>   Done     - Submit IPv6 Prefix Options for DHCPv6 to IESG
>(draft-troan-dhcpv6-opt-prefix-delegation)
>   Done     - Submit 'Detection of Network Attachment (DNA) in IPv4' to
>IESG (draft-ietf-dhc-dna-ipv4)
>   Done     - Resolve IPR issues around 'Rapid Commit Option for DHCPv4'
>   Done     - Publish report on dual-stack issues in DHCP
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dual-stack)
>   Done     - Publish report on requirements for renumbering using
>stateless  DHCPv6 (draft-ietf-dhc-stateless-dhcpv6-renumbering)
>   Done     - Submit 'Lifetime Option for DHCPv6' to IESG
>(draft-ietf-dhc-lifetime)
>   Done     - Submit 'Rapid Commit Option for DHCPv4' to IESG
>(draft-ietf-dhc-rapid-commit-opt)
>   Done     - Submit DDNS/DHCP documents to IESG
>   Done     - Submit 'Node-Specific Client Identifiers for DHCPv4' to IESG
>(draft-ietf-dhc-3315id-for-v4)
>   Done     - WG last call for 'Subnet Allocation Option'
><draft-ietf-dhc-subnet-alloc-04>
>   Done     - WG last call on 'Virtual Subnet Selection Option'
><draft-ietf-dhc-vpn-option>
>   Oct 2007 - Submit 'Subnet Allocation Option'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-subnet-alloc-04) to IESG for Proposed Standard
>   Nov 2007 - WG last call on 'Guidelines for Creating New DHCP Options'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-option-guidelines)
>   Nov 2007 - Submit 'Virtual Subnet Selection Option',
>(draft-ietf-dhc-vpn-option) and (draft-ietf-dhc-agent-vpn-id) to IESG for
>Proposed Standard
>   Dec 2007 - WG last call for 'Domain Suffix Option for DHCPv6'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-dnsdomain)
>   Jan 2008 - Submit 'Domain Suffix Option for DHCPv6'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-opt-dnsdomain) to IESG for Proposed Standard
>   Jan 2008 - Submit 'Guidelines for Creating New DHCP Options'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-option-guidelines) to IESG for Best Current Practice
>   Jan 2008 - Develop plan for advancing DHCPv4 and DHCPv6 plan to include
>completion of DHCPv4 specification review report, 'Implementation Issues
>with RFC 2131' (draft-ietf-dhc-implementation) for Informational
>   Feb 2008 - WG last call for 'Status of Reclassifying DHCPv4 Options'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-status-3942)
>   Feb 2008 - WG last call for 'Dual-stack clients and merging of data
>from DHCPv4 and DHCPv6' (draft-ietf-dhc-dual-stack-merge); waiting for
>more experience with IPv6 deployment
>   Feb 2008 - WG last call for 'Rebind Capability in DHCPv6 Reconfigure
>Messages'  (draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-reconfigure-rebind)
>   Mar 2008 - Submit 'Status of Reclassifying DHCPv4 Options'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-status-3942) to IESG for Informational
>   Apr 2008 - 2nd WG last call for 'DHCP Relay Agent Assignment
>Notification Option (draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-agentopt-delegate) and 'DHCPv6
>Server Reply Sequence Number Option'  (draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-srsn-option)
>   May 2008 - Submit 'Rebind Capability in DHCPv6 Reconfigure Messages'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-reconfigure-rebind) to IESG for Proposed Standard
>   Jun 2008 - WG last call on 'Layer 2 Relay Agent Behaviour'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-layer2-relay-agent)
>   Jul 2008 - Submit 'Layer 2 Relay Agent Behaviour' to IESG
>(draft-ietf-dhc-layer2-relay-agent) for Informational
>   Jul 2008 - Submit 'DHCP Relay Agent Assignment Notification Option'
>(draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-agentopt-delegate) and 'DHCPv6 Server Reply
>Sequence Number Option' (draft-ietf-dhc-dhcpv6-srsn-option) to IESG for
>Proposed Standard
>   Jul 2008 - Recharter, if needed

Did the DHC working group read the milestones?  I ask because it's 
been a few years since the year 2008 ended.

I looked at the last draft mentioned above.  The last revision is 
dated February 2009.  The DHC working group was supposed to deliver 
that draft to the IESG in July 2008.

I looked up draft-ietf-dhc-container-opt-07.  The state as at April 
2013 mentions "WG Document Revised I-D Needed - Issue raised by 
WGLC".  There is a note which says: "This document did NOT pass WGLC 
as there was no support for it and Ralph indicated that there were 
several IESG Discusses from several years ago (2009) that did not get 
addressed".

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 02:59:46 +0000

On Aug 30, 2013, at 9:17 PM, S Moonesamy <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Did the DHC working group read the milestones?  I ask because it's been a few years since the year 2008 ended.

Yes.   The minutes have been updated in the datatracker: https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dhc/charter/

I don't know why this didn't show up in the announcement message.   Actually, the announcement really ought to just point to the datatracker, since what's there is normative.

The container option draft is not considered particularly pressing at the moment—there was some renewed interest in it a couple of IETFs ago, but I don't think it's gone anywhere.

---

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 21:10:25 -0700

Hi Ted,
At 19:59 30-08-2013, Ted Lemon wrote:
>Yes.   The minutes have been updated in the datatracker: 
>https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/dhc/charter/

Thanks.

>I don't know why this didn't show up in the announcement 
>message.   Actually, the

I assumed that the message was generated by the datatracker.

>  announcement really ought to just point to the datatracker, since 
> what's there is normative.

This is an individual opinion.  Please assume that the entire IETF 
disagrees with it.  The datatracker is not the authoritative version 
of a charter.  It is the message archived in the relevant mailing 
list which is considered as authoritative.  The rationale is related 
to note of record.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

---

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 01:35:51 -0400

> of a charter. 

Oh, my heaven, I hope this is false.  What you are proposing is that
an actually useful versioned repository from which we we pull all our
data is less "official", FSVO, than something else.  If that's true,
then the IETF has in fact siezed up in bureaucratic tape -- red or
otherwise.

Best,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Jari Arkko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 11:59:42 +0300

SM,

> I assumed that the message was generated by the data tracker.

The secretariat sends out last call and WG review messages, but the data comes from the tracker. For WGs, this is actually a relatively recent addition. A while ago the proposed charters were not tracked in the database. In any case, I'm not sure what happened - maybe an oversight in the still manual part of the process to send out the mail or maybe the milestone update (that was done just a few days ago) did not get there in time. I'm glad you noticed the issue, however! Thanks!

>> announcement really ought to just point to the datatracker, since what's there is normative.
> 
> This is an individual opinion.  Please assume that the entire IETF disagrees with it.  The datatracker is not the authoritative version of a charter.  It is the message archived in the relevant mailing list which is considered as authoritative.  The rationale is related to note of record.

We try really hard to make sure various sources agree. In general, the amount of automation has been increasing, and we run almost everything just off the data tracker, so I'm hopeful that we're mostly OK. With some exceptions, such as this incident.

But as a practical point, I have to tell you that at least this AD can not remember much about documents and working groups without going through a database. We rely a lot on the datatracker, and the data tracker is also the source of the data that you see on the web site. We often go through e-mail on a topic as well (such as when deciding whether to recommend the approval of a document), but for things like charters the tracker really is in practice what we look at - normative or not.

Jari

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 13:05:57 +0000

> This is an individual opinion.  Please assume that the entire IETF disagrees with it.  The datatracker is not the authoritative version of a charter.  It is the message archived in the relevant mai…

I have to admit that I did not expect my assertion here to be controversial.   The assertion is certainly true about drafts, which we do not mail to mailing lists.   The charter that was mailed to the IETF mailing list is in fact the version that's in the datatracker, so you could argue that it's fine for the mailing list version to be normative.

However, you mentioned that there's no way to track versions of the charter in the datatracker, and this is actually not true—you can indeed track versions in the datatracker.   This is particularly useful since during the review process, changes are made.   So you have a version that goes out on the wg mailing list.   And then ultimately that gets reviewed by the IESG, and very typically the IESG wants changes.

In the DHC charter, there were three changes made during the IESG review process—two work items were separated out as their own bullet items that had been included in larger bullet items, and two bullet items were reordered and reworded to change the emphasis and restrict the scope of one of them.   Two of these changes were made to satisfy requests by IESG members.   The third change was made because one of the working group chairs noticed that one of the first two changes actually unintentionally excluded some work the chair anticipated that the working group should do.

You can actually see all of these changes by looking in the datatracker, but you would have to review the IESG mailing list and the dhc-chairs mailing list to find out about them otherwise.

It's worth pointing out that the datatracker is a _lot_ more capable than it used to be.   When I first started using it, I pretty much never used it, because it was almost always easier to get what I needed on the tools site.   I still find the tools site's UI easier to work with, but the datatracker has a lot of very useful functionality for tracking work as it moves through the IETF process.   I feel very lucky that the datatracker update happened just before I became an AD, because I don't know how I would have done my job without the new functionality.

So my statement was one of practicality, not one of process.   On a practical level, it's easiest to have one place to go to look for things, and not have to look all over the place to get a sense of what has gone on.   That's the datatracker.   If the IETF in fact feels that it should not be normative, I guess that's okay, but I think it's a lot more work for everyone.