Subject: Re: [tcpm] AD Review: draft-ietf-tcpm-icmp-attacks-09

From: Ethan Blanton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 16:08:24 -0500

Alfred Hönes spake unto us the following wisdom:
> It cannot be denied that the TCPM processes are broken.
> That's a basic, general matter of fact.
> Everybody can find evidence in the archives.

Well, I try not to get involved in process rants, but you just drug me
directly into this one.  I will send one message, and one message
only, on this topic.  I do not presume to speak for my co-authors on
RFC 5681.

> I've arbitrarily picked a TCPM charter snapshot (from May 2008) :
>   <http://www.IETF.ORG/dyn/wg/charter/history/tcpm-charter.2008-05-22.0.html>
> 
> | TCP Maintenance and Minor Extensions (tcpm)
> |
> | Last Modified: 2008-04-23
> |
> | ...
> |
> | Goals and Milestones:
> |
> | ...
> |
> | Oct 2006     Submit revision of RFC 2581 to the IESG for publication
> |              as a Draft Standard.
> 
> (Sic. In May 2008.  Time journey?  Hibernation?  Honest, at least.)

Yes.  RFC 5681 took a long time to get out.  It was NOT, however, due
to any alleged adverse actions of vocal mailing list members.  In
fact, if anything, the WG's *failure to comment* at various stages
slowed the draft down more than any comments we actually received.
The mailing list involvement of the working group was, in my opinion,
a net positive contribution to the document.

If you're looking for someone to blame for the slothful progress of
that draft, don't blame comments on the mailing list.  Blame, in order:

1) Me
2) General non-participation in WG activities

Comments rolling in only after weeks or months of silence, process to
be iterated ad nauseam, were a bit of a problem for 5681.  That said,
we got it done, I think it is a valuable update, and I don't think it
arrived anything like too late to be useful.  Would it have been
better to see it in 2006 than in 2009?  Sure.  Were useful changes
incorporated between Oct of 2006 and the final publication?
Absolutely.  Could the comments leading to those changes have been
sent earlier by the participants who actually engaged the process and
caused the WG to function as it should?  Probably, but I sure didn't
pay them for their time, so as it stands I'm simply grateful that they
chose to participate, and that they made the Internet standards body
that much more correct and complete.

In short, I agree with David Borman's summary of the participation
situation.

There may be WG issues (I will not take a strong position on this; I'm
inclined to agree with the spirit of the argument, but I suspect not
the details -- it *should* be difficult to get a controversial change
into the TCP standards body), but I want to publicly state that, as an
author of a document singled out as an example, I don't feel that
over-zealous or ill-conceived feedback was AT ALL responsible for the
sluggish progress of 5681.

Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
		-- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764