Subject: RE: advice on role of a WG Chair

From: "Lars-Erik Jonsson \(LU/EAB\)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 22:04:08 +0200

> 3) Stick to the well-crafted charters and milestones that the
> IESG approves. If WGs are going to depend on each other for
> delivering protocol features as components in an overall
> architecture, then the milestones have to matter.

If one believe it is always more important to deliver on time
than to deliver good solutions, then this might be true.
However, I strongly believe it is often better to be late than
to send things out that will cause problems on the Internet.

> (I know WG Chairs should already manage the WG focus/scope
> effectively such that the WG always meets its milestones.
> Yet in practice, IETF milestones are hardly ever met, so
> something is broken.)

Things are ready when they are ready, it is almost always
impossible to predict when this will be. One can force
work to be completed on a specific time, but that does not
mean it is really ready. In a consensus-based process with
technology in focus, milestones can not provide anything but
estimated completion dates. Also remember that WG chairs
have no real control over their (our) working resources.

/L-E