Subject: RE: [newtrk] last call on newtrk draft charter

From: "Lars-Erik Jonsson (LU/EAB)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 08:20:15 +0100

Scott and others,

I think the charter is good enough to work from, but there is
one thing in the text that I think should be better clarified
(at least it is unclear to me).

   "3/ there should be some form of "working group snapshot,"
       this might or might not be a formal stage on the standards
       track and might or might not be an archival publication"

What is meant with a WG snapshot, and what is the actual current
problem this is addressing? Are we talking of "complete WG snapshots",
i.e. unified "releases" of all WG documents, or are we talking of 
snapshots of each WG document? If it is the latter, is not that what
we have with WG Internet Drafts today? One can easily find out from
the WG web pages which drafts are WG documents, and each draft version
is a snapshot of the document development. If we are thinking of
complete WG snapshots of all documents, I can not really see the 
reason for introducing that, nor do I think it would be a good thing
(rather the opposite).

/L-E

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked]
> [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of [email-masked]
> Sent: den 26 januari 2004 16:04
> To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [newtrk] last call on newtrk draft charetr
> 
> 
> http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk/msg00033.html
> 
> ---
> From [email-masked]  Mon Jan 26 00:13:10 2004
> X-Original-To: [email-masked]
> Delivered-To: [email-masked]
> Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 00:13:09 -0500
> From: John Leslie <[email-masked]>
> To: Scott Bradner <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [newtrk] last call on newtrk draft charetr
> References: <[email-masked]>
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> 
> Scott Bradner <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > 
> > this is a 'last call' for the newtrk draft charter before sending it
> > off to the AD/IESG - please comment (if you are going to) by
> > friday jan 30
> 
>    Could we have a URL for the document being last-called?
> 
>    (I'd _really_ rather not guess which document it is.)
> 
> --
> John Leslie <[email-masked]>
> 
> .
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---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 06:01:42 -0600

Lars-Erik,

The problem WGS is intended to solve is that just knowing that draft
06 is a working group document doesn't help you figure out whether the
WG thinks they are just starting, just ending, or somewhere in the
middle, so that when people decide to implement and gain experience,
they don't all implement the same version of the spec.

The problem WGS is not intended to solve, but I hope that it does, is
that when people start implementing a product based on a working group
document in advance of an RFC, they don't all implement the same
version of the spec, so WGS will likely help with early
interoperability in products as well.

I think.

Spencer

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lars-Erik Jonsson (LU/EAB)" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 1:20 AM
Subject: RE: [newtrk] last call on newtrk draft charter

> > newtrk
resources:_____________________________________________________
> > web user interface:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk.html
> > mhonarc archive:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk/index.html
> >
>
> This communication is confidential and intended solely for the
addressee(s). Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution
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>
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.

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 09:48:41 -0500

> when  people decide  to  implement  and gain  experience,  they don't  all
> implement the same version of the spec 

In the WGs with  which I am familiar, no one ever  decides to "implement and
gain  experience".    Implementations  are  done   because  some  commercial
advantage is  envisioned.  The version of  the draft to  implement is chosen
for reasons of  expediency, e.g, the need to  interoperate with a particular
implementation,  time-to-market,  etc.   I  just can't  conceive  of  anyone
waiting until a "working group snapshot" is declared. 

The "working group snapshot" idea is a solution in search of a problem.  

.

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 07:35:24 -0600

From: "Eric Rosen" <[email-masked]>
To: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 8:48 AM
Subject: Re: [newtrk] last call on newtrk draft charter

> The "working group snapshot" idea is a solution in search of a
problem.

I've been thinking about Eric's note for nearly a week, and it's not
going away. I believe Eric when he says he doesn't care if a
specification is a WGS or not.

If Eric and fellow working group participants don't think they need
WGS, they shouldn't be required, and there probably are WGs where WGSs
are not required.

I don't believe any of the current proposals mandate them. Certainly
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-dawkins-pstmt-twostage-01.txt
does not.

So far, I can think of these consumers for WGS:

- makers of protocol analysers, network monitors, and load testers,
who really DON'T want to implement 12 versions of M2PA (so far), plus
the approved version, but are seeing customers asking about M2PA,

- other groups (inside and outside the IETF) who are trying to figure
out what the level of maturity is for a proposal in order to base work
on it,

- including the various ICAR/SIR/AIR-CREW/ART teams we're talking
about, who don't want to review every draft, but are supposed to help
with "late surprises",

- the research and education communities - we get the most benefit
from their feedback when we're not changing the spec two or three
times per IETF cycle, but we haven't approved a standards-track
document yet.

If you don't fall into a category like these, you probably don't think
we need WGS, either.

I'd still like to try an experiment, and know for sure one way or the
other.

Spencer

.

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 06:43:15 -0600

Just following up on "who needs WGS anyway?"...

I work on network monitoring equipment, when I am not posting to
newtrk.

Yesterday, my boss popped into my office to tell me that we'd gotten a
customer request to monitor draft -11.txt of a protocol.

We have already implemented four different drafts for this protocol,
and people don't ask us for support of a protocol unless they are
buying vendor gear from someone else that they will be monitoring
using our equipment.

Version 12 is already in the repository, so we know version 11 isn't
the end of the road, and we have no idea how many more versions of the
draft will end up in other people's products before the protocol hits
PS..

So, our product gets cruftier, which would be a personal problem,
except that we remove support for variants that aren't being used in
the network, so if our products get cruftier, it's because networks
are getting cruftier, too. Hope all the variants work together,
because there are four deployed variants that we know about, and
there's about to be a fifth one.

I'd like to collect stories like this for a draft, so our discussion
on WGS will be a little bit more grounded. If you have a story about
how you think WGS might help you, personally (not "be a good thing for
the universe in general", we already have a lifetime supply of
philosophy in the archives), please send it to me, OFFLIST!

Thanks,

Spencer

.

---

From: Eric Rosen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:14:40 -0500

Spencer> Just following up on "who needs WGS anyway?"... 

Spencer> Yesterday,  my boss  popped into  my office  to tell  me  that we'd
Spencer> gotten a customer request to monitor draft -11.txt of a protocol.

Spencer> We have already implemented four different drafts for this protocol,
Spencer> and people don't ask us for support of a protocol unless they are
Spencer> buying vendor gear from someone else that they will be monitoring
Spencer> using our equipment.

I don't see how  this is a "why we need WGS  story".  Unless the vendors and
their customers  care whether a  draft has WGS  status, WGS won't  help your
problem at all. 
.
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