Subject: [mpls-tp] First set of comments on draft-ietf-mpls-tp-requirements-06

From: "BUSI ITALO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:10:35 +0200

In attachment a first set of comments on
draft-ietf-mpls-tp-requirements-06.

I take the opportunity to wish you all an Happy Easter

Italo

PS - The "we" in these comments represent a sub-set of the people I have
worked with in providing LC comments on
draft-ietf-mpls-tp-requirements-04

---

From: Ben Niven-Jenkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:01:46 +0100

Italo,

I will respond to the individual comments in due course.

However, I would like to make a couple of general observations:

1) I am somewhat surprised by some of the comments which refer to unresolved
WG LC comments. I meticulously responded to the majority of WG LC comments
prior to 28th February and have received virtually no follow up discussion
so to be told 6 weeks later they are unresolved comes as a surprise to me.

Personally I would have preferred to have the discussion in response to the
emails I sent during WG LC addressing the received comments as it allows me
to better track each comment and the history of the discussion rather than
having to compare multiple versions of the draft and dig through my email
archives to remind myself of the discussion.

It is not necessary for ITU-T participants to wait for a liaison to
participate in the IETF process and I believe the only way we will be able
to achieve the challenging timescales ITU-T have asked IETF to meet is if
ITU-T participants are actively participating in the IETF process. This will
IMO be absolutely necessary as we progress because we will have a number of
drafts progressing through WG LC virtually in parallel albeit slightly
staggered. If all those drafts have to be reviewed in the manner of the
requirements draft and if ITU-T wait until the drafts are formally liaised
before discussing comments then IMO it simply will not be possible to get
all the drafts ITU-T requires published in time.

2) In a couple of places it is suggested that requirements in the draft
require significant further discussion for example 1:n Vs (1:1)^n
protection.

While I think it is valid to further discuss requirements that are unclear
we must also be mindful that at some point we need to draw a line and accept
that while the document may not be perfect it is good enough to achieve its
stated aim at this time.

If we insist on waiting for the document to be "perfect" then we risk
delaying publication of it and any solutions that rely on it. So I think we
need to be conscious of this when stating areas need further discussion to
ascertain whether it is a lack of clarity in a given requirement that needs
discussion and resolution or a more general discussion point that can be
addressed (e.g. With more detailed requirements) in a subsequent draft.

Have a good Easter,
Ben

On 10/04/2009 16:10, "BUSI ITALO" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> mpls-tp mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/mpls-tp

---

From: Thomas Walsh <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:11:44 -0400

Ben,

Well said but we must also recognize that people are allowed to make comments at any point in the discussion.  Otherwise, it would not be necessary to even have the ITU-T review at all. 

But your point that anyone from the ITU-T is welcome and may participate in the earlier IETF discussions is to be encouraged as much as possible.

I don't like to discourage people from raising issues even if it could have been handled earlier.  Over the years, I have seen a lot of errors corrected at the last minute or worse after publication and we clearly don't want the latter.

I agree we don't need perfection; just achieve technical correctness.

Tom 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf
> Of Ben Niven-Jenkins
> Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 2:02 PM
> To: BUSI ITALO; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [mpls-tp] First set of comments on draft-ietf-mpls-tp-
> requirements-06
> 
> Italo,
>

---

From: Ben Niven-Jenkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:45:53 +0100

Tom,

You raise a good point and I now realise my comments have the capacity to be
misconstrued.

Of course comments are welcome at any time and I did not mean to suggest
otherwise.

I was surprised by comments referring to unresolved WG LC comments which I
believed were resolved already as no further discussion had taken place on
the MPLS-TP list.  My interpretation of the situation was that the authors
of those comments had waited until the document was liaised to ITU before
continuing the discussion. That is a valid methodology but I just wanted to
highlight that such delay was not necessary as ITU participants can also
participate directly in IETF and also that such delay may end up holding up
documents later on when we get closer to the deadline for publishing in time
for the ITU-T meeting in October.

HTH
Ben

On 13/04/2009 17:11, "Thomas Walsh" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Ben,
> 
> Well said but we must also recognize that people are allowed to make comments
> at any point in the discussion.  Otherwise, it would not be necessary to even
> have the ITU-T review at all.
> 
> But your point that anyone from the ITU-T is welcome and may participate in
> the earlier IETF discussions is to be encouraged as much as possible.
> 
> I don't like to discourage people from raising issues even if it could have
> been handled earlier.  Over the years, I have seen a lot of errors corrected
> at the last minute or worse after publication and we clearly don't want the
> latter.
>

---

From: Huub van Helvoort <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:07:12 +0200

Hello Italo,

> draft-ietf-mpls-tp-requirements-06.

I concur with the comments you provided.
You saved me considerable time to write down the same.

> I take the opportunity to wish you all an Happy Easter
Thank you (as it is still Easter here in the Netherlands).

Cheers, Huub.

-- 
================================================================
Always remember that you are unique...just like everyone else...

---

From: Huub van Helvoort <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:10:56 +0200

Hello Ben,

> Of course comments are welcome at any time and I did not mean to suggest

Your editorship is highly appreaciated.

> for the ITU-T meeting in October.

It was very difficult (for me) to follow the whole discussion
and the resolution of the commenst due to the length of some
emails.
It was also difficult to see what was resolved and what not (yet).
In ITU-T we keep track of issues, proposals and resolutions in
a table (as we did e.g. for G.8113 and G.8114).

I think we have moved forward on the learning curve, and the next
time improve the editing.

H5,  Huub.

---

From: "BUSI ITALO" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:54:05 +0200

Ben,

I agree that you are doing a great job as an editor of this (non easy)
document.

I agree that late comments are better than publishing incorrect
documents.

However I fully agree that early comments are better than late comments
and it is everyone's duty to raise comments as soon as possible.

Therefore you deserve my apologizes for being late in commenting. I was
not waiting for the document being liaied to ITU-T before reviewing it.
Rather I was taken by surprise noticing that the document was so ahead
of the schedule.

I have now improved my learning on the process and the next time I will
better organize myself to avoid a similar situation to happen again.

However, I share Huub's difficulty in keeping track of discussions,
proposals and resolutions.

Italo

> From: Huub van Helvoort [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 9:11 AM
> To: Ben Niven-Jenkins
> Cc: BUSI ITALO; [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [mpls-tp] First set of comments on 
> draft-ietf-mpls-tp-requirements-06
> 
> Hello Ben,
> 
> You wrote:
>

---

From: Ben Niven-Jenkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:25:00 +0100

Cool, now we've all had a group hug and sung Kumbaya[1] round the fire we
can get back to the "real" work in hand.

I will try and process your comments this week. I will try and split up my
responses into more manageable chunks for easier tracking/discussion.

Ben

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbaya

---

From: "tom.petch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:58:38 +0200

Ben

My earlier comments have been picked up, thank you, apart from

   46  The MPLS-TP control pane
      /pane/plane/

I think that draft-helvoort-mpls-tp-rosetta-stone will need referencing but
perhaps that should become a WG I-D first.

Tom Petch

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Niven-Jenkins" <[email-masked]>
To: "BUSI ITALO" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>;
<[email-masked]>
Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 11:01 PM
Subject: Re: [mpls-tp] First set of comments on
draft-ietf-mpls-tp-requirements-06

---

From: "tom.petch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:44:49 +0200

<Inline>

Tom Petch

----- Original Message -----
From: "BUSI ITALO" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>; "Ben Niven-Jenkins" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 11:54 AM
Subject: Re: [mpls-tp] First set of comments
ondraft-ietf-mpls-tp-requirements-06

> proposals and resolutions.

Me too, but perhaps for different reasons.

The IETF discussions I follow tend to live (and die) by mailing list posts, as
opposed to marked up documents (HTML, Word, etc) and tend to use the message
subject as the 'tracker' with few, one even, topic per message subject. And the
common practice is to include the last person's contribution, perhaps the
previous one, but not everything that has so far appeared in the thread; and to
do so in plain (ASCII) text.

Some lists encourage this by imposing a limit of 10kbyte on any one message,
deferring anything larger for manual intervention.

So when I receive a sequence of some 20 messages each of 1Mbyte (including
diagrams that don't in practice display:-(, I struggle to keep up.  My way of
working, even my e-mail system, cannot cope.

I have noticed that ccamp, pce etc are somewhat unlike other IETF lists but even
so, I would prefer:
 - putting that brilliant diagram, that resolves all issues, on a website; many
Working Groups have ancillary websites linked from the IETF Charter page for
just such purposes
 - ditto any comments that just have to take the form of a marked up web page or
Word document
 - pausing now and again to reflect just how little of the e-mails that have so
far appeared on the thread actually add to the clarity of the one now being sent
 - changing the subject line when the topic changes, as Loa so kindly
demonstrated to us not long ago

The IETF does have tracker technology, for handling comments and issues, but
most Working Groups that use it fail to do so successfully.  It needs crystal
clarity in teasing out one issue from another and giving it a sensible subject
name, something that usually fails to happen; the e-mail thread, with its
greater flexibility tends to work better.

And at the end of a discussion, the resolution I look for is the rough
consensus, sometimes explicitly declared by the WG Chair, sometimes left
implicit.

Tom Petch

> > draft-ietf-mpls-tp-requirements-06

<snip>