Re: Documents need to conclude

[Doug Royer <Doug.Royer at Software.com>]

Dennis Glatting wrote:
> 
> Last night at the IESG's open mic at the Plenary I shared my concern
> on document life cycle. I am writing to clarify my comments and offer
> a suggestion I did not make at that time.
>.....
>
>         Once something is committed to paper in a WG a timer
>         starts. The document has 24 months (6 IETF sessions)
>         to either be sent to the IESG for advancement or
>         with WG consensus the Chair petitions the AD for a
>         two session extension, which can be extended in the
>         same manner again. Otherwise the document is
>         withdrawn.
> 
> I believe this rule to add something the IETF sorely needs but is
> unfair to impose: a little bit of project management. It's advantage
> is very low overhead.
> 
> Comments?

Vendors need to make sure the protocols they help develop work.
In some areas the protocols would be simple to implement if they did not
have
to interoperate. And there is a very real need for vendors to ship
products
in that 2 year window.  This means that sometimes vendors do not have
the time
to move as fast as as the IETF could move. This can be frustrating if
your
company can move faster.

A solution is to write drafts yourself and submit them to the WGs, then
take the
input from the WG and write another. I have seen many talk of this
issue. I have
seen fewer propose text or some kind of draft.

In IMPP (one of the WGs complained about), the input was that it has
been 2 years.
Well IMPP has not existed for 2 years. That persons frustration was
including the
time it took to move those ideas into becoming a WG. Then those pioneers
who have known each other for the last 2 years (or more) assembling the
WG
have an idea of what they want. When the WG forms they are ready to go
and
get it done - if it were not for the rest of us with our own ideas. This
is part of the review process.

Meetings of the WGs outside of the 3 general meetings are discouraged.
Slowing
the progress to what can be done to 2-3 hours every 4 months for the
face to
face communications. Email is powerful, it can often be an endless
debate that
the chair NEEDS to resolve.The chairs I suspect are afraid that they
will
be accused of moving the WG direction for their own benefit. I would
hope that
we have faith in our process AND our chairs, many do not seem to have
that faith.

I feel that deadlines will work if the chairs can whip the process into
progress.
In IMPP there was a loud request from the attendees for the chairs to
start
cracking the whip.

-Doug
Doug.Royer at Software.com