Subject: [ietf-outcomes] Notation for "multi-phase" efforts

From: Dave CROCKER <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:26:27 -0800

Folks,

Some IETF work goes through stages of maturity.  The positive form of this is 
version 1, version 2, and so on.  A less happy form consists of one or more 
false-starts, before possibly going down a path that leads to success.

How should we enter data into the Outcomes wiki, to reflect these phases? 
Phases are common enough to warrant being consistent in how we indicate them.

The basic approach that has been taken with a few such examples in the current 
wiki is to have a separate entry for each phase.  This has the benefit of 
permitting an independent outcome assessment, and other details, for each phase.

The challenge, then, is how to indicate that two or more entries are related. 
For example, the current Internet page has 3 entries for IPv6 and it is not 
clear how they are related.

I think the easiest is to choose among 3 simple alternatives:

    1)  Add a qualifier to the name in the Technology/Service column (1st column)

    2)  Add a comment to the Description column (2d col)

    3)  Add a comment to the Comments column (last col.)

My own feeling is that it's more helpful to highlight these relationships and 
that adding qualifier to Col 1 is the way to do, where the qualifier could 
perhaps be the year the phase /starts/.

So, for example, DNSSec currently has two entries and they could become:

    DNSSec 1994

    DNSSec 1997

My think is that marking the start of an effort is sometimes much easier than 
marking its finish, since the wiki does not (necessarily) define an entry based 
on a single RFC publication.

Thoughts?

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net