Subject: [INDEP] Re: I-D ACTION:draft-klensin-rfc-independent-03.txt

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Nov 2006 20:15:45 +0100

Thanks, John, for the update. Just a few points:

> 4.8.  Formal IESG Review

Assuming this draft isn't intended to be a BCP, which would bring in a whole
other set of review considerations, I don't think it can *formally* define
an IESG process. I have suggest two changes for how to handle this:

1. Change the section title to "IESG Review"

2. Insert a disclaimer sentence such as

Note that this section does not constitute part of the formal IETF
process, which can only be modified by an approved BCP document.

> 4.10.  Intellectual Property Rights
> 
>    IPR provisions for independent submissions are as specified in the
>    material on RFC Editor submissions in BCP 78 [RFC3978] although that
>    material should eventually be migrated into a successor of this
>    document.

A similar point; in particular the last clause is more or less
editorialising about IETF process. I think it's sufficient to just
say

    IPR provisions for independent submissions are currently specified in the
    material on RFC Editor submissions in BCP 78 [RFC3978].

(I'm not against moving the material if there's a consensus to do that,
but it just doesn't seem we should say so right here.)

> 5.  The Editorial Review Board

...

>    applied.  However, to ensure the independence of the independent
>    submission process, the final decision to appoint (or not appoint)
>    Editorial Board members rests with the RFC Editor.

Shouldn't that be "decision to appoint (or not appoint) or retire..."?

     Brian

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---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2006 01:46:38 -0500

--On Friday, 03 November, 2006 20:15 +0100 Brian E Carpenter
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> an IESG process.

Brian, this all depends on what the IAB decides to do with it.
Option 1 is that the document is recast as my personal opinion
as to what the process should be, in which case this text is
clearly wrong.  Option 2 is that the IAB takes it over.  If that
happens, then the IAB, it seems to me, is permitted to specify,
in conjunction with the RFC Editor, what the RFC Editor does
and, in particular, what the RFC Editor does with any input it
gets, including from the IESG.  And the third possibility is
that it, in fact, heads toward being a BCP.

So, fwiw, ...

> I have suggest two changes for how to handle
> this:
> 

That is where it started.  The difficulty is that there are two
points at which review by the IESG can occur.  The first, which
I am pleased to see is increasingly being used, involves the RFC
Editor looking at a document and saying "this is probably a
conflict" and asking the relevant AD or the IESG more generally
to comment before any significant resources are spent on
technical or editorial review.  And the second is the review
that is, uh, formally called for by 2026 and 3932.

>>    IPR provisions for independent submissions are as
>>    specified in the material on RFC Editor submissions in BCP
>>    78 [RFC3978] although that material should eventually be
>>    migrated into a successor of this document.
> 
> editorialising about IETF process. I think it's sufficient to
> just say
> 

The obvious difficulty is that 3978, iir, handwaves around this
situation, more or less indicating that the RFC Editor can and
should make up rules and publish them.   From a "formal"
procedural standpoint, the IETF can't make IPR policies for the
RFC Editor.  ISOC presumably could or could have, which might
mean that the IAOC (aka IETF Trust) could except that this would
be policy and the IAOC doesn't make policy, and, at least as
I've understood things, the IAB clearly can.  But...

Informally, I hope that we don't get to the point at which that
level of procedural hair-splitting is necessary, but it was that
informal spirit in which the text was written.

>>    applied.  However, to ensure the independence of the
>>    independent submission process, the final decision to
>>    appoint (or not appoint) Editorial Board members rests
>>    with the RFC Editor.
> 

Probably some "serve at pleasure" language would be appropriate.
That was certainly the intent.

best,
    john