Subject: RE: Response requested: Proposal regarding milestones

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 18:11:47 -0600

> back when i was an AD, i had three criteria that a BOF had to meet
> before i'd say yes.
>     
> first, there had to be technical competents in the room willing to do
> the work.
>     
> second, there had to be real users in the room willing to buy the
> resulting products.
>     
> third, the two groups had to be able to communicate with each other
> effectively.
>     
> if i wasn't comfortable with any of these three things, then my answer
> was "no".

The above rules of thumb are still pretty good criteria for WG creation 
decisions. But as you state, this was your way of functioning and not
necessarily something that the IESG did in general? 
Saying "no" is fine as long as the IESG/IAB deliberations and decision
criteria are clearly explained to the WG and there is no shroud of secrecy.

> more recently, dave crocker and others have suggested that a fourth
> criteria is necessary. specifically, that prior to the bof a mailing
> list be set up and go active to discuss the issues, technical
> approaches, etc.  i think the idea here is that it's easier 
> to gauge how serious people are if you have a month or two of archives to 
> look at...

I think it does help the ADs in assesing the interest level and seriousness
of participants. I agree that such a crieria would be acceptable to anyone
who is serious about proposing new work in the IETF. 

>     
> ps: in case you're wondering why i didn't include
>     
>     it makes sense to do the work in the ietf
>     
> in the list, it's because if there was any doubt to that, then there
> would be no bof, period.

So this should be criterion zero for BoF approval. But I had no doubts that
this is already the case anyway.

-Basavaraj

---

From: Marshall Rose <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 16:28:04 -0800

> > ...

i can't speak for the current iesg. perhaps they have an even more
detailed criteria, which would be great.    
    
and certainly, i agree with you that there needs to be a timely ruling
of the answer.
    
however, i'm not sure what you mean by "no shroud of secrecy". frankly,
i'm much more interested in accountability and not transparency. i'm not
that interested in what the iesg does in private providing that it
clearly explains the reasoning behind a decision. in other words, i'm
happy to let them privately discuss things, to encourage a candid exchange,
providing they get back to us in finite time and say the answer is "X"
because of "Y".

> who is serious about proposing new work in the IETF. 

yeah, in retrospect, crocker's idea is sort of obvious, isn't it...

> this is already the case anyway.

well, i sort of have some doubts. there've been a couple things over the
years, that, at first, i thought were some kind of satanic typos in the
agenda...
    
/mtr