Re: Why Interim Meetings?

[Dave Crocker <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>]

At 11:41 AM 1/18/2001 -0500, Edward Lewis wrote:
>Here's the deal.  I have not heard anything regarding the charter, hence we
>are still not an IETF WG.  I've been trying to balance "jumping the gun" on
>an IETF decision (as that may have a negative impact) with leaving enough
>time to make this meeting happen.

Official approval of a working group is, of course, significant.  On the 
other hand a desire to meet aggressive schedules thoroughly justifies 
conducting the group as if it were already chartered.  As long as it 
follows IETF procedures, the worst that can be said is that it is an open, 
extremely fair, private process...


>Without an IETF acceptance of the charter, I believe that it would be
>improper to have a *closed door* meeting as this would give the appearance
>of a small group trying to push through a "special interest" through the
>standards body.

It is never improper for a private group to meet and discuss whatever they 
want (except price-fixing and violent government overthrow, but that's a 
bit out of our scope...)  It IS improper for such a group to pursue its 
work coercively.

That is, a closed design team is a perfectly reasonable thing to have, as 
long as it follows IETF rules, namely that the team is fully responsive to 
the larger "working group" consensus.


>Another reason that I feel that a closed door meeting would send the wrong
>message is that we would be vulnerable to a charge that we didn't invite
>folks from a wide enough pool of interested parties.

Anyone is free to create their own design team and put the result before 
the larger, open working group.

If there is good reason to believe that a fully open meeting can achieve 
consensus, on requirements, specification, or whatever, without having 
design team input, then the right thing to do is have an open "working 
group" meeting.

It all depends on what works best... as long as the larger, open group 
retain real control over final decisions.


>As our effort has not
>been publicized on an IETF sanctioned channel (ietf-announce,
>www.ietf.org), some folks could argue that we haven't gone far enough in
>trying to get a broad base of input.

If the meeting is to be open, then yes it needs to be fully announced.


>Mind you, I am saying this as an IETF process puppet. (;))

Me too.  (I wrote about half of the original IETF standards process 
document, and co-authored the original Guidelines for Working Group Chairs.)


>To put this in perspective, there are two influences here.  One is the IETF
>desire to arrive at consensus through the right means and produce a
>protocol specification - this is a process I can quantify (if not fully
>explain).  The other group desire is the need to hurry along.  Although I
>know of this desire, I can't say I can quantify it in sufficient detail to
>help me negotiate our way through the IETF process.

Let me help:  Some registries need the specification yesterday.


>What I am asking here
>is for more information from folks quantifying why this effort should be
>"sped up."  If you want to send me this off-list, that's fine.

Can't hurt to issue an explicit, targeted query about urgency, separate 
from this message thread.


>For what it
>is worth, if I know of deadlines, I may be able to use this when working
>the process.

Excellent point.


>I do think that dynamic interaction (whether face-to-face or via phone) is
>beneficial at this point.  I just don't want to jeopardize WG status
>establishment.

Agreed, but I don't believe that running a working group as a working group 
-- as long as the usual rules are employed -- should offend anyone...

         unless there is serious reason to believe that the charter will 
undergo major changes.

d/

=-=-=-=-=
Dave Crocker  <dcrocker@brandenburg.com>
Brandenburg Consulting  <www.brandenburg.com>
Tel: +1.408.246.8253,  Fax: +1.408.273.6464