Subject: [yam] IETF76 YAM WG minutes - Version 0.1

From: S Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Dec 2009 13:07:17 -0800

The YAM WG held a meeting at IETF76.  This is Version 0.1 of the 
minutes.  Please email me any changes.  I would like to post the 
final version before Wednesday 9th December.

Yet Another Mail Working Group Minutes

Meeting : IETF76, Wednesday 11 November 2009
Location: ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel, Hiroshima, Cattleya West, 09:00-10:30
Chairs  : Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Minutes : S. Moonesamy <[email-masked]>
	   Version 0.1

AGENDA

A. Meeting Administrivia
    Note well
    Agenda bashing
B. Discuss how our process is working
    Alexey Melnikov
    Dave Crocker
C. Next Steps
    Wither the working group?
    Template changes?
D. Any Other Business

Meeting Report

A. Meeting Administrivia

Tony Hansen chaired the the IETF76 YAM Working Group meeting in 
Hiroshima, Japan.  S. Moonesamy was the scribe.  Barry Leiba was the 
Jabber scribe.

The Chair brought the Note Well to the attention of the meeting 
participants and asked them to sign the blue sheets.

B. Discuss how our process is working

Alexey Melnikov, Applications Area Director, mentioned that some of 
the old Area Directors and the new Area Directors did not understand 
how the process was supposed to work.  The question of whether 
current IESG members can bind future members was raised during IESG 
discussions.  There was confusion about the process.

The Applications Area Director reported that the IESG found the 
format of the pre-evaluation document suitable.  He stated that it is 
better to list the changes not to be done so that the IESG can think 
about them in advance.  He also mentioned that the IESG got 
distracted by discussions about security considerations.  The 
discussions was not really productive as they turned to everything 
that could possibly go wrong.  The IESG will be processing the 
pre-evaluation documents as Management items.

The Applications Area Director proposed to take two moderately 
complex documents and do one using the two step process and do the 
other using the normal process and see whether we get variation in 
speed and try to analyze why.  The Working Group would then know 
whether the process experiments works or not.

Dave Crocker, author of draft-ietf-yam-rfc1652bis-pre-evaluation, 
viewed the tone of  responses from the IESG as complaints instead of 
a collaborative effort to improve things.  The Working Group could 
choose to challenge the process but that would be seen as a social 
statement about entering a state of war with the IESG.

It was mentioned that the IESG, as a whole, did not agree to be 
constrained by the process used by the YAM Working Group.  John 
Klensin asked whether the Area Directors that decided that they do 
not want to be constrained been identified by the NomCom was 
asked.  Dave Crocker, who is a NomCom member, declined to answer the 
question.  John Klensin questioned whether it was acceptable for 
individual IESG members to hold documents for long periods of time 
because of some hobby horse that they mounted very late in the 
process and without any justification from IETF Last-Call. He pointed 
out that changing the process requires a major revision of the 
charter.  Barry Leiba pointed out that the chartering process already 
binds future IESGs.

Pete Resnick was annoyed that the the IESG seemed uniquely tied to 
the procedures and the rules and the tools that the IESG uses.  It is 
odd for the IESG to complain that the Working Group is doing things 
differently when the purpose of the process experiment is to do 
things differently.  There is a view within the IETF that moving 
anything to Full Standard is not a regular process and that the 
process ends when a document gets to Proposed Standard.

C. Next Steps

The Working Group viewed it as worthwhile to take a commitment given 
the maturity of the documents being progressed along the Standards 
Track.  There was a comment that the choice is between either doing 
that work or revising the Standards Process.

There was some comments from the room about EPP.  John Klensin 
mentioned that the specifications are uncontroversial as nobody 
outside its community cares.  The situation is different for email as 
everybody in the IETF who works with email has opinions and 
participants in the IETF including some Area Directors believe that 
there are experts because they are using email.  He is in favor of a 
expedited fast track model instead of bringing the documents to Full 
Standards against an IESG that is not really interested in Full 
Standards except insofar that they get to second guess everything 
every time a document comes to them.

The Applications Area Director mentioned that there were discussions 
during this year's IESG retreat about why moving documents to Full 
Standard is so difficult.  He reassured the Working Group that there 
is a strong feeling within the IESG that it is important to help move 
documents to Full Standard.

If the work on the SMTP document is done within six months, it would 
be easier as two-thirds of the original IESG have reviewed and voted 
on it for Draft Standard.  John Klensin pointed out that several 
members of the existing IESG agreed to change their vote and not to 
raise objections on moving that document to Draft Standard on the 
condition that changes would be made when the document went to Full Standard.

There is a need to consider the larger issues carefully.  Dave 
Crocker reminded the Working Group not to be distracted from its goal 
and to go and do the actual work without the effort of a 
recharter.  The Area Directory mentioned that the IESG would not 
nit-pick about a recharter if the Working Group wants to use a 
one-step process.  John Klensin disagreed and pointed out that such a 
decision could be appealled.  He was pessimistic about the experiment 
but he agreed that it is worth trying.  He noted that from a 
political standpoint, it is better to take the question of the 
behavior of the IESG when moving complex documents about which the 
community cares to Full Standard to the community and get it out of 
the YAM Working Group.

Barry Leiba suggested taking the IESG on their word and continuing 
the experiment by working on the SMTP document.  He volunteered to 
take on the document if John Klensin had any reason to pass the 
document off.  Although he is ambivalent about the value of the 
three-step standards track, he believes that it is important to take 
RFC 5321 and RFC 5322 to Full Standard is that RFC 821 and RFC 822 
are at Full Standard.

Speaking as an individual, Chris Newman commented that if the YAM 
Working Group re-charters, he would like the pre-review replaced with 
text providing equivalent functionality.  He suggested a first draft 
for the recharter:

   When the WG attempts to move a document from draft to full 
standard it will only make minor technical corrections deemed 
necessary to better align with the installed base.  In the event 
changes the WG believes have a substantive risk of breaking backwards 
compatibility are deemed to be blocking by the IESG, the WG will 
remove the document from processing and its charter.  In the event 
all documents are removed from the WG charter, the WG will write a 
narrowly drawn update to RFC 2026 that eliminates the third level of 
standard; this update document is forbidden from making other changes 
in the standards process.

Presently, he support continuing with the pre-review experiment.  The 
Applications Area Director commented that the text is excellent and 
that he is tempted to recharter with it.

The Chair called for a multi-voting to find the sense of the room 
with a four way hum and asked for comments before the hum on:

   1. Do you want to disband?

   2. Do you want to recharter to a one-step process before continuing?

   3. Do you want to continue working but do as Alexey suggested in 
his original slides and do one step versus two step comparison of two 
different documents?

   4. Do we continue with the current course on the next set of 
documents in the two step process?

Dave Crocker mentioned that the Chair left out the question that some 
Working Group participants considered it as reasonable to continue a 
one-step process without rechartering.

John Klensin suggested a slightly different refinement which is to go 
ahead and put the template for RFC 5321 into the harper as it is the 
most complex and probably the most controversial document the Working 
Group has which responds directly to the IESG's request to do 
that.  He called for the Working Group to be disbanded if the IESG 
responds to that template by saying yes this looks find but we 
reserve the right to make any changes we want or any demands we want 
during and after Last-Call.  Pete Resnick agreed with John Klensin 
and suggested a variant which is to work on RFC 5322 as it is a big 
document but not as controversial.

Pete Resnick suggested having a hum before getting into a discussion 
about the relative controversy of the documents.  Dave Crocker 
suggested changing the humming process because the classic problem of 
making list of decisions is that it is not quite the right one.  He proposed:

   1. The first is disband or continue.

   2. The second is keep the charter or revise the charter.

   3. And the third is depending on the other one, is what to do if 
we keep the charter or what to do if we change the charter.

The Chair pushed back on that.  The Applications Area Director 
pointed out that there were so little people in the room and asked 
for a raise of hands.

The Chair asked the following questions:

  1. Who wants to disband?

  2. Who wants to flat out switch to one-step process whether we do a 
recharter or skip the recharter?

  3. Who wants to follow Alexey's original suggestion of doing a 
comparison step with two documents, one that does a one-step process 
and the following does a two-step process?

  4. Who wants to continue with the two step process for the next 
couple of documents?

The first and third questions did not get any votes.  There was one 
vote for the second question and four votes for the fourth question.

There was not enough time to discuss specific changes to templates 
that came up on the list.

The next set of documents are SMTP, Mail Format and Submit.  The 
Chair only has the pre-version of the template for RFC 5321.  Randy 
would only be able to do Submit in about three weeks.  Pete has not 
provided the template for RFC 5322 yet. John Klensin pointed out that 
the experiment with RFC 5321 is very important due to the nature of 
its controversies.

The Chair asked for a raise of hands on doing:

  1. RFC 5322 only

  2. RFC 5321 only

  3. Both RFC 5321 and RFC 5322

  There was three votes for each of the questions.  The  Chair ruled 
that there was no consensus.

D. Any Other Business

This item was not discussed as there was not enough time.

The Chair ended the meeting.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy
YAM WG Secretary