Subject: RE: Response requested: Proposal regarding milestones

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 14:52:31 -0600

Hi, Ted,

Your clarifications helped. I still have one area where I'm confused (on this specific topic).

> 
> > - a definition of "consensus" - I'm not clear on how your proposal =
> > differs from today's practice, unless it's limiting the 
> survey to the =
> > "membership" (contributors?).
> 
> Again, I don't want to limit anyone's right to make a technical
> comment.  I do think it is valuable to have a sense of who has agreed
> to take on the work, so that the "rough consensus of the working
> group" can be based on a sense of who the working group is.  Taken in
> the form of positive statements by folks who have committed to reading
> the documents that "yes, this document is a clear specification of
> good engineering for this problem", I think we'd be miles ahead of
> where we are now.

I'm still swimming on this one. You're solving the "working group consensus" problem, but I thought you were solving the "IETF consensus" problem. This sounds like we're focused on figuring out when we have working group consensus, using a technique we can't reuse to figure out we have IETF consensus. But it would help us figure out when we have working group consensus.

This very day on the Problems mailing list, Marshall Rose typed 

> there have always been radically different opposing
> viewpoints, eg., SGMP v. CMIP v. HEMS.

I'm wondering how IETF would cut this Gordian knot today - have three working groups, each of which achieves working group consensus among the contributors and forwards drafts to IESG, or have one working group that bangs heads until they achieve working group consensus (or not)?

(signed) curious

---

From: Marshall Rose <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 13:54:26 -0800

> I'm wondering how IETF would cut this Gordian knot today - have three working
> groups, each of which achieves working group consensus among the contributors
> and forwards drafts to IESG, or have one working group that bangs heads until
> they achieve working group consensus (or not)?

the historical answer was to allow the combatans to proceed independently
(modulo some minor framework constraints) and let the market decide...

my sense is that the current answer would be to try to drill down to just one
before proceeding.

the issue, in the broadest sense, is whether the ietf makes the choice or
whether the market decides...

in cases where "it's clear" that there is a dramatic differential in:

	- consistency with the overall architecture, or,
	- consistency within the specific architecture

i guess i'd trust the ietf to choose.

/mtr

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From: Ted Hardie <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 14:50:15 -0800 (PST)

Spencer (curious) writes:

> =3D
> > > differs from today's practice, unless it's limiting the=20
> > survey to the =3D
> >=20
> I'm still swimming on this one. You're solving the "working group =
> consensus" problem, but I thought you were solving the "IETF consensus" =
> problem. This sounds like we're focused on figuring out when we have =
> working group consensus, using a technique we can't reuse to figure out =
> we have IETF consensus. But it would help us figure out when we have =
> working group consensus.

Remember that I was actually focused even further back, on trying to
identify the folks who have committed to the work chartered for a
working group.  I suspect that having the folks who are so committed
make definite statements about the work would improve our tools for
judging consensus, and I hope that having a pool of people who are so
committed would improve our ability to manage our groups to the
chartered milestones.

I agree that you cannot easily re-use this process to judge IETF
consensus.  I'm still swimming here myself, and though I can see a few
buoys in the water, I'm not sure whether I'm heading out to sea or
home to the harbor.

						Ted

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From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 13:56:55 -0800 (PST)

> working group.

It would seem to me that identifying this group (and determining whether
their skill set is adequate) should be an important part of deciding
whether to go ahead with the charter.

Forming WGs is a little like having children -- everyone wants to be
present at conception, but when it comes to follow through -- we often
fall short.

The reality is that completing a standards effort is very time consuming
-- it typically takes years of work, on a continuous basis. As part of the
nomcom process, we require nominees for the IAB and IESG to get written
commitments from their management indicating that they understand the
level of commitment and agree to that level of support. I wonder how many
WGs can demonstrate a "core" with that level of commitment.

> I hope that having a pool of people who are so

I'd say it's essential to know if that group exists before getting
started.