Subject: RE: Allocating RFC numbers at time of approval

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 19:37:11 -0400

Geoff,

> prerfc?  um - this is getting _really_ silly if you ask me.
> 
> Publish the damn things. Let the RFC editor figure out when a 
> number is allocated and let them just get on with their job.
> 
> Now can we drop wgchairs off this thread - please?

Please reread the thread.  The current process of having full
publication in the critical path to an RFC number is causing
difficulties in working with other standards development
organizations.  Telling those organizations to go <bleep>
themselves because we'll <bleep> get around to allocating an
RFC number when we <bleep> feel like it is not a productive
response.

I will admit that I have not been perfectly diligent in pushing
the drafts involved along at every opportunity (my day job has
this annoying habit of interfering with my IETF work), but OTOH
as a WG chair, I currently have the dubious honor of having
one of the oldest drafts in the RFC Editor's queue. In
the RFC Editor's defense, the draft's in Authors 48 hours
review now in response to an acceleration request.

Thanks,
--David
----------------------------------------------------
David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 176 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
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[email-masked]        Mobile: +1 (978) 394-7754
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From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 10:22:49 +1000

David,

I read the thread through and I admit that my frustration did get the
better of me! :-)

I suspect that we have three problems -

1 - perfection is the enemy of good - i.e. in adopting the position that
     RFC text is immutable (not even to be sullied by having errata
     appended to the document) means that there is very high pressure
     to delay the  publication process in order to get each document
    absolutely perfect.

    If this was a process that required chisels and large slabs of
    granite I might be more sympathetic to that line of argument, but
    it seems to me that this approach is causing us to spend considerable
    time and effort for no real lasting benefit.

2 - the process is under-resourced, or improperly resourced. Clearly
     if the process were properly resources there would be no
     major backlog of documents idling in the queue. This is not a criticism
     of the RFC Editor, but simply an observation of the size of the document
     queue over some years now.

3 - there is no way for the editor to 'spit it back' as being not ready
     for publication as it is awaiting some other event that is beyond the
     rfc editor's control. i.e. the queue is actually two queues - documents
     that are awaiting processing, and documents that have failed some
     step in the publication process and are now awaiting some external
     action beyond the Editor's control.

I suspect that 1) is solvable by looking at the errata process and
the method of application of errata to documents - this appears to
be an RFC Editor issue, I'd guess.

I suspect that 2) is an IAOC- related matter in the first instance.

I suspect that 3) is an IESG matter in terms of process definition and
process ownership, assuming that this is something that can be resolved
by changing the process itself.

But what I personally see as counter-productive is to 'institutionalize' 
the stalled
RFC production process - the real answer, imho, is for the publication process
to spit the document  out of the RFC Editor queue as fast as possible - either
publish the damn thing quickly or throw it back into the draft pool for a
re-spin because the references are not ready, the author is non-responsive,
... etc

It seems to me that the course of action that would make a lot of these issues
that cause so much heartburn over stalled documents simply go away
is to adhere to a document publication process that operates efficiently,
quickly and predictably.

regards,

    Geoff

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2005 11:00:01 +0200

Geoff,

What you say is mainly correct. Let me just say that we
(Leslie and I and others...) have in mind two separate
topics:

a) what the IETF needs in its technical publications process
   in general terms

b) specifics of efficient execution of the process.

I see this thread as part of a).

Topic b) is IASA business and is something the IAOC takes
seriously, but we don't want to distract the community
with the details.

    Brian