Subject: RE: Target date for Minor Version Only rfc's

From: "Noveck, Dave" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 04:32:27 -0800

It's hard to deal with this in the abstract.  People's ideas 
of what is "very simple" or "very large" are liable to differ 
significantly. 

My feeling is that there is a big overhead in doing a minor 
version and that, if we are going to do that, we want to get 
a significant benefit out of it.  So, unless there is one or 
a small set of mistakes in v4.0 that we think need to be fixed 
expeditiously (order of a month or two), we should not do a 
tiny minor version. 

On the other hand, in order to get a benefit from a minor version, 
we need to complete one in a reasonable time and so I think we 
need to stay away from taking on things that are very complex or 
not well-defined. 

To give some concreteness to this, my feeling is that we should 
be looking at a minor version that can be completed (i.e. reach 
Proposed Standard) in about a year.  I think we want to do something 
that is considerably smaller than v4.0, but still gives us significant 
benefit and so I think a year is reasonable.  There's nothing magic 
about twelve months but I think we need some target to avoid getting 
into a situation where things keep getting added to the minor version 
and it just never gets quite finished.  We need to set up some sort of 
schedule and then keep to it, even if this means that some good stuff 
gets deferred. 

Another benefit of a schedule is that it will encourage people to do 
the work of making proposals and not just keep putting off the work 
indefinitely.  I've certainly been guilty of that.  For example, 
directory delegation is something that we deferred from v4.0 because 
of time constraints and there would therefore be a lot of interest 
in a proposal for directory delegation for v4.1.  But I know that 
without a schedule/deadline of some sort, the chances of me sitting 
down and writing something on this are kind of small. 

I think we need to work out the process for a minor version.  I know 
that's not the kind of stuff we are interested in but I don't think 
it can be avoided.  We need to first come up with a schedule.  Also, 
we need some way of keeping track of what has been proposed and what 
the status of the individual items are.  I'm thinking of a very simple 
web page with links to internet-drafts (for larger stuff) and e-mails 
(for smaller stuff).  The reason I think this latter is important is 
that the key to getting this done is for the working group to insist 
that individual changes are fully fleshed out and discussed *before* 
being put into the v4.1 rfc-to-be.  Things should not be put into 
the v4.1 document "on spec" simply because they are good ideas.  If 
we do that, then v4.1 becomes hostage to the first idea that seems 
good at first but turns out not to be so good.  So we need to keep track 
of the good ideas while they are discussed and turned into something 
ready for the spec. 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Spencer Shepler [mailto:[email-masked]
<mailto:[email-masked]> ] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2003 8:07 PM 
To: [email-masked] 
Subject: Re: Target date for Minor Version Only rfc's 

On Tue, Stevan Steve Allen wrote: 
> 
> 
> 
> What is the target date cutoff concerning comments, requests, etc.. for 
> this NFS version? 

At this point, minor versioning work is just beginning and no 
deadlines have been set.  Mike E. has expressed an interest in keeping 
NFSv4.1 very simple so as to let implementors the ability to gain 
experience with the protocol's methodology while not undertaking 
something very large. 

Are there other opinions out there? 

-- 
Spencer