Subject: Re: A perspective on the FYI RFC Publication Process

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 14:07:26 -0700 (MST)

> From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>

> ...
> >Given its scarcity, why should the IETF spend its "person power" on
> >anything that the IETF is "just not interested in"?  Why should standards
> >track documents wait behind irrelevant (to the IETF) documents for the
> >attention of the IESG or the RFC Editor?  Why should the IETF pay to edit
> >or publish every random document from every random person who wants the
> >cachet of being an RFC author?  
>
> I think the issue here is that there are lots of folks who would like the
> cachet of having published an RFC, and having an RFC that documents their
> work or ideas. That is not bad; consider that some random documents, like
> RFC 970, have identified and explored significant problems, and others,
> like RFC 950, have proposed ideas that eventually got incorporated into the
> base architecture. Ideas are good things, even if they are not standards,
> and even if they turn out to not be the best ideas.

That is good and true in any small or medium sized, homogeous,
technical organization, as the IETF once was.

> What has become problematic is people using that process to circumvent the
> working group process, ....

That's one problem, but I do not think it captures the difficulty that
started this discussion.  The people involved do not and did not think
they were circumventing anything.   No marketeer worth paying is able
to understand that their wonderful Technology is rationally considered
something else by others who are not competators.

As someone else said, the value of any publication today is in the editing,
in what does not get published.  10 years ago or even 5 years ago, the
IETF was small and homogeneous, and needed much less filtering.  The value
of the RFC series is that so far it is not quite the same as the stream
of inter-ad filler in a trade rag.

> ...
> money; that wasn't true two months ago) sends documents mailed to it to the
> IESG for review prior to publication.
>
> Generally, the result is a comment to the RFC Editor along the lines of
> ...

I am very uncomfortable with the IESG, IAB, or RFC Editor acting in such
a fashion except on documents that are related to the concensus of a
working group (perhaps including minority reports arguing against the
concensus).  Such extensive work on non-working group documents results
in a chimera of traded rag crossed with an accredited standards
organization and having ambitions to being a real (e.g. referees) journal.
The world does not need another one of those; the IEEE and ACM publish
plenty.

> ...
> During our review, we frequently make comments back to the author along the
> lines of "how about if you identify your company in the title", "have you
> thought about management or security?", ...

No, I'm wrong.  The organization you're describing is not a traded rag+ITU
group+ACM journal, but all of those plus a canonical (as in ecclesiastical)
court.  (Never mind that I would probably agree with all of the judgements
of this court.)

> I think it's important for all to understand that the ADs give first
> priority to looking at the documents that the working groups have sent us,
> and look over other submissions in their copious spare time. We do try to
> be timely, but individual submissions are not our highest priority, and are
> generally reviewed by a small subset of the Area Directors rather than
> getting full IESG review. So this type of stuff is not holding up other
> more pressing work.

That is clearly false.  Never mind that just maintaining the queue of low
priority submissions and responding to questions about why they have not
been published yet takes time.  The policy of accepting random documents
has resulted in the recent protest, and that dealing with that protest
will and has consumed time that would have been better spent elsewhere.

> As a practical suggestion: if you are worried about the IESG reviews, one
> thing that you can do is offer your reviewing services to the various Area
> Directors. You can either drop a note to the relevant ADs for subjects
> you'd be willing to be involved in, or drop a note to [email-masked] stating
> what sorts of documents you would be willing to help out with.

As long as the IAB or the IESG are willing to even read documents from 
elsewhere, there will be complaints that you are an evil, anti-competative
conspiracy not acting fast enough on new Technology.  The IETF is too
large and too powerful to have to luxury of the old generous, informal ways.

I don't know which will happen first, some outfit going to court because
enough, or because some other outfit's was reviewed and given a number
too fast.  I bet one or the other happens pretty soon.  Protestations that
Informational RFCs are weightless won't carry much weight, especially
given public statements from IETF officials about the care they exercise
in reviewing Informational RFCs.  I bet that the next person won't write
100's of lines of protest, but will have a lawyer do it.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]

---

From: "Marsh, Miles (Gene)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 08:38:51 -0500

Fred,

While at it, why not break down the documentation process by topic, or
subtopic, or sub-subtopic?

While I can empathize with those who believe there is the potential for mass
confusion based on the multitude of sources of information, I can't see why
that calls for a stifling of ideas.

Gene Marsh
Diebold Incorporated

-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Baker [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, November 13, 1998 3:23 AM
To: Vernon Schryver
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: A perspective on the FYI RFC Publication Process

At 02:07 PM 11/12/98 -0700, Vernon Schryver wrote:
>working group

I don't think the output of working groups, regardless of intended status,
is under discussion. I think we're talking about random documents folks
send in. So you're saying that you are uncomfortable with the IESG advising
the RFC Editor on what is to be published as an RFC? Or are you saying that
you're uncomfortable with the RFC Editor publishing non-working-group
documents?

>large and too powerful to have to luxury of the old generous, informal
ways.

sigh. But I like being generous and informal :^( I can be a faceless
burocrat, but I can probably find a clerk in a passport office that can do
that job.

In essence, I think you are advocating that the only output of the IETF is
documents that result from working groups, and that all RFCs henceforth
should be of that origin. Am I correct?

If so, then I submit that you might agree with a comment which has been
made in poised/poisson for quite a while: that we need to have a separation
in document series. Documents which result from working groups are one kind
of document (exactly what to call them I'll leave to another note), and
documents that come from elsewhere are something else (exactly what to call
them, and by what process they occur, I'll leave to another note). Am I
correct?

---

From: "Marsh, Miles (Gene)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 08:38:51 -0500

Fred,

Gene Marsh
Diebold Incorporated

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 13:53:55 +0000

At 23:20 12/11/98 +0000, Lloyd Wood wrote:
[...]
>But the ideas in them can't be extended,
>built on or used towards implementing computer-computer communication
>standards in any way, which is a key point of the useful RFCs.)

That's an interesting criterion.

Maybe it should be applied more explicitly in the FYI review process, with
some onus on the submitter to demonstrate applicability of such?

#g

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 13:53:55 +0000

#g

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 13:54:24 +0000

#g

------------
Graham Klyne
([email-masked])

---

From: Graham Klyne <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 13:54:24 +0000

#g

------------
Graham Klyne
([email-masked])

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 11:34:24 -0700 (MST)

> From: Lloyd Wood <[email-masked]>

> > in what does not get published.
>
> Not just editing. There's a lot to be said in favour of having an
> _independent_ editor.

Expertise, independence, technical knowledge, etc are necessary tools
for an editor, but editing is measured only by what is (not) published.

> That independence goes with accountability - not going back and
> rewriting the archives or the standards to suit current practice, and
> providing a permanent distributed archive of material that can be
> extended and built on; the strong point of the RFCs. 

Your choice.  I value current accuracy above historical preservation.
Libraries do a good job of preserving the past.  If you've ever said much
on the net, chances are your words are stuck in amber in more than one 
archive.

> ...
> ? These do look quite similar to trade rag intros-to-the-internet to
> me. (How many new users will begin by reading RFCs? How quickly will

Once upon a time, RFC's were not holy writ.  They are now, no matter
how much those inside the church protest or resist.

> ...
> > The policy of accepting random documents has resulted in the recent
> > protest, and that dealing with that protest will and has consumed
> > time that would have been better spent elsewhere. 
>
> Avoiding accepting random documents by insisting that a working group
> to be set up for submission of documents will merely lead to the
> creation of random working groups and death by committee - and the
> lone individual inside an organisation making an effort to get their
> vendor protocol documented publically gets sidelined. 
> ...

The IETF is not a general publisher.  The tools of a general publisher
(editorial focus, etc) are secondary.  There are other, more powerful
forces that already generate bogus standards committees than plausible
but still theoretical effects of clamping down on Informational RFCs.
For the most part, the IETF has done a good job in preventing bogus
committees, but I've seen some close shaves.  The IEEE, ANSI, and IETF
all have mechanisms that try to limit the number of bad committees.  They
cannot be perfect, but "PAR's" and the IETF equivalent do have good and
necessary effects.

] From: Fred Baker <[email-masked]>

] ...
] In essence, I think you are advocating that the only output of the IETF is
] documents that result from working groups, and that all RFCs henceforth
] should be of that origin. Am I correct?

That's close enough.  I'm saying that regardless of anyone's preferences,
there are literally millions of people who do and will think that all
documents named "mumble RFC mumble" are on equal footing, and will not
distinguish RFC 760 from the RFC of the recent complaint/appeal, and
generally do not understand the difference between those two and RFC 1149.
Nothing good and probably significant bad will come from the current (and
old) course.

] If so, then I submit that you might agree with a comment which has been
] made in poised/poisson for quite a while: that we need to have a separation
] in document series. Documents which result from working groups are one kind
] of document (exactly what to call them I'll leave to another note), and
] documents that come from elsewhere are something else (exactly what to call
] them, and by what process they occur, I'll leave to another note). Am I
] correct?

Yes, I would agree with that, if the distinctions between the classes that
are clear to casual observers.  The names of the series matter more than
the substance.  You and I know that the differences between an Offishal
Fur Shure Standard and a netnews message are superficial, technically
uninteresting, and often irrelevant to business.  We care about the
substance more than the label or the publisher.  There are plenty of
protocols that were born informally, and plenty of dead, useless formal
junk.  However, there are excellent reasons why there are no such things
as "Informational" documents with IEEE 800 series numbers.

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 11:34:24 -0700 (MST)

] ...