Subject: AB's three questions [Was: Routing ADs Open Office in Atlanta]

From: "Adrian Farrel" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:16:23 +0100

Hi,

> I want to start from now to post my questions if possible, because I
> may not be able to be in Atlanta. My questions are:

Thanks for the questions. You certainly don't need to wait for AD's Office Hours
to ask questions. We just offer the Office Hours as a way to have high bandwidth
exchanges.

> 1- How can we have IETF MANET and ROLL WGs guided to work together to
> advise participants not to overlap concepts related to such WG?

On the whole, I believe this already works.
Participants are guided by the WG charters and encouraged to stay within a short
distance of the charter by the chairs.
Cross-review of work is also encouraged where appropriate, but it helps to not
have cross-posted discussions - i.e., to limit the discussions to a single
mailing list.

Many IETF working groups have close or overlapping tasks (for example, the L3VPN
working group does work closely related to IDR and MPLS; the CCAMP working group
does work related to MPLS, OSPF, and ISIS; etc.). The really important thing is
that we (i.e., the participants) don't waste everybody's time by shopping our
ideas from one WG to another, and that the chairs don't waste the participants'
time by endlessly sending them from one WG to another.

Wrt MANET, it is clear where the historic base is, and it is clear that ROLL was
set up to examine a similar but significantly different problem space. It makes
a lot of sense for the applicability of MANET protocols to be considered in the
ROLL problem-space and vice versa. It also makes sense for protocol developers
to consider additional scenarios and requirements. But we tend to shy away from
attempts to develop "god protocols". In fact, many would argue that each of the
MANET and ROLL problem spaces is wide enough to make the development of a
"simple" protocol hard so that widening the problem space to encompass both
MANET and ROLL would be a challenge.

A lot of this discussion was well rehearsed when the ROLL working group was
formed.

That said, we don't operate an IETF police force that will require people to
behave in a particular way. We rely on good sense and a cooperative spirit under
guidance of the WG chairs. We do have sanctions for very bad offenders, but
these are harsh sanctions and not applied frequently. So the key word from your
question is "guidance". I believe that guidance has been offered (repeatedly) by
the MANET and ROLL chairs on and off list, and now it up to the participants to
work out how to behave.

> 2- How can we make any WG within Routing Area to concider the mailing
> list as the point of making/taking/suggesting decisions not only
> through Face-to-Face meetings?

Well, it is clear that decisions are formally made on the mailing lists and not
in f2f meetings. However, progressing discussions and making suggestions could
and should happen in f2f sessions. F2f is very valuable for the very
high-bandwidth and multi-media exchanges. 

You will often hear a chair take the mod of the room in an f2f meeting and then
say "OK, that sounds like consensus. We will take it to the list."

But please do not expect every decision about every word in a document to be
formally discussed and signed off as the text is developed. That is not how it
works. The editors of WG documents are pro-active custodians of text: they are
expected to capture text based on WG consensus, but also to advance the work on
behalf of the WG. If a new revision of an I-D contains something new, it will be
exposed to the mailing list by  the editor, visible in the diffs, and often
explicitly flagged at the next meeting. If someone disagrees with the changes,
they will (of course) speak up on the mailing list and then a discussion can
follow. Ultimately, working group last call offers the chance for people to
express their content or discontent, but hopefully all issues have been flushed
well before that.

I think it is also important to observe that a WG would be in a real mess if
every discussion had to result in a consensus call from the chairs. The IETF
works best when participants drive themselves towards consensus both by making
compromises, and by willing to recognise when they are "in the rough" and need
to step back.

> 3- Do we in IETF concider WG minutes document without consensus of WG?

RFC2026 calls for "complete and accurate minutes of meetings", but there is no
process laid down for gaining consensus on minutes. Indeed (and of course), the
minutes only reflect what was said in the meeting; they do not create WG
consensus. So the consensus on the minutes would only ever be at the level of
"Yes, this is what was said and the key points have been captured."

Since the inclusion of audio streams in the proceedings archive, the minutes
have become much more of a management summary. I use them to remind me what was
discussed, and if I want the details I usually go to the audio to find out the
precise words used.

As ADs, we encourage chairs to get draft minutes posted early while the
discussions are fresh in everyone's minds. Sometimes this is harder because of
snafus with minute takers, vacations, computer failures, work-loads, etc. etc.

Anyone who believes the minutes are not accurate or complete can send mail at
any time to the WG list or to the chairs direct. They can update the minutes
with help from the Secretariat.

I don't believe a formal consensus call on the minutes is needed for exactly the
reason that the meetings are not formally decision-making.

Hope this helps,
Adrian

---

From: Abdussalam Baryun <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2012 09:25:40 +0200

Thanks alot your explaination and guidance,

Best Regards
AB
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Please note that my three questions is not to be understood that any
chair in ietf didn't do the volunteer job. I just want to understand
the practice so I
can contribute and know what I should do with experts guidance (i.e. I
already read the procedures). I have experience that all chairs delt
with me are very good in guidance and doing perfect job, including all ADs.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++