RE: Terms used in rules-update-07

[John C Klensin <john-ietf at jck.com>]

--On Sunday, July 30, 2006 2:09 PM -0400 "Contreras, Jorge" 
<Jorge.Contreras at wilmerhale.com> wrote:

> > Jorge has assured me in the past that any document that's
> > approved in the IETF (i.e. by the IESG) is part of the IETF
> > standards process, even if it isn't on the IETF Standards
> > Track. This  doesn't apply
> > to documents from other sources (e.g. IRTF or Independent
> > Submissions.)
>
> That's correct.

It seems to me that, if we are going to start relying on that 
distinction in any substantive way, we are going to need to make 
it very clear which documents are which.  At present, as far as 
the RFCs themselves, there is no textual distinction between 
IESG-approved Informational documents and independent 
submissions... unless one knows what the exact distinctions are 
in boilerplate in a given month and then does the detective 
work.

Worse, there is a subtle interaction between this question and 
the discussions about the RFC Editor RFP, the status of 
independent submissions, etc.  To briefly repeat what has been 
said elsewhere, our tradition -- I thought firmly established 
when the current management model was put in place -- is that 
the IESG does not get to determine what the community thinks: 
the role of the IESG is steering, management, and interpretation 
of community consensus and conclusions after the community has 
been asked.  The text in 2026 reinforces this: the idea of an 
"AD-sponsored" informational or experimental document that does 
not originate as a WG product is entirely the invention of the 
IESG: there is no place in, or authority for, such documents in 
our formal procedures.  If 2026 is to be taken seriously, the 
_only_ RFCs that are IETF products are standards track either 
standards track or products of WG efforts.

Remember that, under the "AD-sponsored" theory of informational 
or experimental RFCs, the IESG is not required to manage a Last 
Call on those documents, announce the action it is considering 
taking, or involve the IETF community (or seek its consensus) in 
any way beyond the simple fact of publication as an 
Internet-Draft.  The AD sponsorship model has seemed relatively 
harmless to me, and possibly beneficial, but, if those documents 
are part of the standards track, we have a whole series of 
issues about announcements, possibility for appeal, and other 
appropriate process that, it seems to me, require modifications 
to 2026, approval of the ISOC Board and insurance carriers, etc.

I don't see how "IESG approved" can be used to substitute for 
"IETF produced" unless we are going to go back and modify 2026 
to extend the IESG's authority to decide things without any 
contact with the community other than the wisdom and intuitions 
of the IESG membership.  Jorge, it would be different if you 
said "any document that went through IETF Last Call and was 
subsequently approved" was an IETF document.  But I just don't 
think there is and foundation for equating "IESG approved" with 
"approved in the IETF" and hence part of the standards process. 
It actually seems to me that such an interpretation is fraught 
with dangers.

     john


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