Subject: Re: [DNSOP] Comments on mic comments, 5011 update's authorship

From: Wes Hardaker <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Dec 2017 17:06:16 -0800

Edward Lewis <[email-masked]> writes:

Ed,

Sorry for the delay in a response.  Too many recent deadlines and
vacations...

> It seems that there is an impression that I feel the authors of the
> 5011-update draft are wrong choice to be documenting this.  This is
> not meant to be a personal attack on the authors but a blanket comment
> on seeing operator-focused documents being produced without operator
> involvement.  (Apologies if it is thought to be an ad hominum
> "attack".)

I do understand that it wasn't anything personal.

> It isn't that Wes and Warren aren't qualified to write the document.
> I'm commenting on the legacy of documents written by protocol
> designers that are passed off as operations guidance.

I think this is where the biggest misconception may lie about the
purpose of our document.  The document is structured as a mathematically
defined security line that you MUST NOT cross, not as operational
guidance.  We even state so multiple times in the document and I do hope
that a future document (authored by someone else) comes out as a BCP or
informational document that truly does give good advice, from a
publishers point of view, about the best way to use RFC5011 and
suggested timing mechanisms for key-rolling things like the root and
other domains.

This document is a security analysis result, however, and it may be that
you might think this was actually the wrong group to submit it through?  

[good story about operators not reading RFCs...]

> Since then I wondered what could be done to improve the usefulness of
> RFCs to operators and why I have begun to think of "return on
> investment" of documents.

I sure wish we had a better answer to this problem, as it's been
plaguing the O&M section of the IETF for decades (forever?).
Unfortunately, I suspect that there isn't nearly enough "real operator
content" here (IETF) to attract the attention of operators.  It still
looks and feels and smells like a protocol engineer camp, and if you're
an operator and have the choice of spending time and a travel budget
toward an IETF or toward a *OG/RIPE, it's much more likely you'll head
toward the dedicated operational camps.  I'm not sure that means we
shouldn't produce work out of the O&M area though, as we have a lot of
people from operator companies that are here as proxies at least.
-- 
Wes Hardaker
USC/ISI