Subject: [yam] Discussion of Two Track Ramifications for YAM

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:01:32 -0400

As indicated in my previous message with notes from Maastricht, the 
ramifications of Russ Housley's "two track" proposal were discussed 
there. See the slides for a summary of the issues at 
https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/78/materials.html#wg-yam.

At the end of the meeting, three questions were discussed:

     1) should the YAM working group continue working at its current 
rate on its current doc set?
     2) should the YAM working group "hit the pause button"?
     3) should the YAM working group shut down?

Absolutely no one supported the last item, #3. However, the room was 
fairly evenly split between support for both #1 and #2.

Please respond to this message with an indication of your support for 
either #1 (working apace) or #2 (pausing), as well as why.

If you support #2 (pausing), please also discuss how long of a pause you 
feel is appropriate and why.

     Tony Hansen
     YAM co-chair

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:35:39 -0400

--On Tuesday, August 10, 2010 00:01 -0400 Tony Hansen
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> As indicated in my previous message with notes from
> Maastricht, the ramifications of Russ Housley's "two track"
> proposal were discussed there. See the slides for a summary of
> the issues at
>      1) should the YAM working group continue working at its
> current rate on its current doc set?
> Absolutely no one supported the last item, #3. However, the
> room was fairly evenly split between support for both #1 and
> #2.
> 
> Please respond to this message with an indication of your
> support for either #1 (working apace) or #2 (pausing), as well
> as why.
> 
> If you support #2 (pausing), please also discuss how long of a
> pause you feel is appropriate and why.

I support #2 (pausing) because:

(1) The main motivation for the YAM work was advancement of an
interrelated collection of documents to Full Standard.  If the
eliminate of Full Standard (collapsing its name onto Draft
Standard) eliminates the need to advance the documents in a
coordinated way, we should be making document-by-document
decisions about priorities, timing, and the tradeoff between
document revisions and errata pages.

(2) If we are going to do revisions-in-place (Draft called Full
to Draft called Full), than many of the discussions and
assumptions that have gone into the pre-eval documents become
questionable and should be reviewed.  It is not clear that
either the WG or the IESG have the energy for such a review.
I've gathered that the need to do those reviews are part of what
motivated the "two track" discussion and decision on the IESG's
part.  And, if we have to go back to "present document to the
IESG and risk surprises and a game of 'gotcha, we are imposing
additional requirements at Last Call'" as in the past, it is
questionable as to whether it is worth the energy to move
forward.

(3) Certainly it may be worth revising some of the documents
that are on the YAM agenda even if "Full Standard" is no longer
a reason.  But that would should then be done after considering
tradeoffs with other work.  And we should consider whether
similar pre-evaluation arrangements are still in order and, if
so, discuss with the IESG, de novo, whether they are willing to
work with those arrangements.

Put differently, we need to remember why the effort that became
YAM was started.  If the IESG decides to eliminate the
motivation, we need to review whether that effort still makes
sense.

As far as "how long" is concerned, I think we stay paused until 

	(i) The IESG decides to adopt this Two Track plan or
	some other one.
	
	(ii) Either the IESG explicitly abandons the Two Track
	plan or the I-D expires.

In the first case, our first un-pausing action should be a
review of what we want to do given the new facts.  In the
second, we go back to work.

In principle, if authors get motivated, nothing prevents posting
of drafts of revised documents or even new pre-eval documents
even while we are paused.  As I see it, the effects of a pause
is that all benchmark dates are suspended and authors and
editors are not going to get hassled for the absence of new
I-Ds. 

   john

---

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:51:49 -0700

> 1) should the YAM working group continue working at its current rate on its
> current doc set?
...
> If you support #2 (pausing), please also discuss how long of a pause you feel is
> appropriate and why.

#2

The pause should be until there is clear resolution of the IESG proposal, by 
adoption or until there is consensus that the topic is dead -- that is, that the 
IETF will continue with its current model.

Although the latter non-resolution "resolution" sounds squishy, I suspect it 
will be quite clear to us if/when it holds true, as long as we don't rush to 
make the assessment.,

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net

---

From: SM <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:47:19 -0700

>fairly evenly split between support for both #1 and #2.

Option #1 could be rewritten as "will the document editors continue 
working on the documents at the current rate".

Option #1 could also be rewritten as - "will the IESG evaluate the 
pre-evaluation I-Ds and drafts submitted by the YAM working group 
painlessly and in a timely manner".

The "success in the WG [also] requires that there be a good-faith 
commitment by both its participants and the IESG".  It is unclear 
whether there will be a two-track level, STDs or good-faith commitment.

I support option #2.

Regards,
-sm

---

From: Ned Freed <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:57:54 -0700 (PDT)

> I support #2 (pausing) because:

I support #2 as well.

> document revisions and errata pages.

Exactly. In my own case, if there's a draft->full step, my time is best spent
working on getting various documents through that step. If that step doesn't
exist, my time would be much better spent working on advancing assorted
proposed standards, like parameter encoding, enhanceddeliverystatuscodes, and
about a bizillion sieve documents, across the proposed->full step.

And if there's spare energy to do advancemtn work while we wait, might I
suggest it be used to do things like coming up with interop reports for Sieve?

> questionable as to whether it is worth the energy to move

Agreed, although this is less of a factor for me than (1).

> work with those arrangements.

Exactly.

				Ned

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:59:02 -0400

--On Tuesday, August 10, 2010 08:47 -0700 SM <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> Option #1 could be rewritten as "will the document editors
> continue working on the documents at the current rate".

Yes.  As I pointed out in Maastricht, the document authors could
force #2 by the simple expedient of doing nothing for a while.
That particular pause could be ended by firing the document
editors and finding new ones. I doubt that would be productive.

Certainly, as one of those authors, I would prefer a WG decision
to pause than having to face the question of whether I could get
motivated under the circumstances.  But getting me motivated
while the status of the standards track is uncertain would be
quite difficult given competing demands on time (including Ned's
comments, the EAI work, etc.).

> Option #1 could also be rewritten as - "will the IESG evaluate
> the pre-evaluation I-Ds and drafts submitted by the YAM
> working group painlessly and in a timely manner".

I think we already have an empirical answer to that question,
unless, of course, the fact of community discussion of the Two
Track proposal(s) somehow inspire the IESG to more efficient (or
painless and timely) processing of those documents.

best,
   john

---

From: Barry Leiba <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:24:50 -0500

>    1) should the YAM working group continue working at its current rate on
> its current doc set?
> Absolutely no one supported the last item, #3. However, the room was fairly
> evenly split between support for both #1 and #2.

That doesn't agree with my notes, which say that, while there was
support for both (including some ambivalence), #2 clearly won.
Perhaps I'm projecting.

In any case, I'm one who has some ambivalence, not wanting the useful
updates to die.  That said, I agree with John Klensin's note -- and,
nicely, that note addresses my concern -- and give a fifth vote for
pausing, #2.

Will anyone weigh in with #1 ?

Barry