Subject: Documents need to conclude

From: Dennis Glatting <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 05:07:38 -0800 (PST)

Last night at the IESG's open mic at the Plenary I shared my concern
on document life cycle. I am writing to clarify my comments and offer
a suggestion I did not make at that time.

Yesterday, in the sprit of the law enforcement question in front of
us, a small group of people including myself held court in isolation
and passed judgment on some WG drafts. We found some drafts guilty of
a lack of entropy and some others a lack of momentum. Ladies and
gentlemen you have heard comments like this one many times before:
work items need a time limit. The IESG's response was the same you
have heard many time before also: we're an organization of volunteers
and it is unfair to make such demands.

I agree with the IESG and that it is a difficult problem. However, we
have two related issues before us. The first is we have to figure out
how to scale the IETF. The second is documents that do not conclude in
reasonable time tend to defocus WGs. More specifically, the longer a
WG persists the more items that are put in front of the WG with the
result of spreading limited energies.

For every case I can put before you of documents that need closure I
can put before you documents that have excelled from prolonged
exposure. The IPsec documents are great examples of documents that
have excelled. Therefore, I offer to you this rule to consider:

	Once something is committed to paper in a WG a timer 
	starts. The document has 24 months (6 IETF sessions) 
	to either be sent to the IESG for advancement or 
	with WG consensus the Chair petitions the AD for a 
	two session extension, which can be extended in the 
	same manner again. Otherwise the document is
	withdrawn.

I believe this rule to add something the IETF sorely needs but is
unfair to impose: a little bit of project management. It's advantage
is very low overhead.

Comments?

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From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 09:35:44 -0500

At 05:07 AM 11/11/99 -0800, Dennis Glatting wrote:
>Therefore, I offer to you this rule to consider:
>

It is not clear that this needs to be a "rule". It seems to me that, if an 
IETF member thinks that a WG draft has been alive too long, a letter to the 
WG chair with a Cc to the AD should be sufficient. I am hesitant to have a 
"rule" as compared to a "best current practice".

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 10:46:52 -0500

Agree with sentiment, don't agree with suggested fix.

At 05:07 11.11.99 -0800, Dennis Glatting wrote:

>have excelled.

I am not terribly happy about process management using hard time limits.
I would suggest an alternate procedure:

At any time in the IETF process, any participant in the IETF can request 
that work items be removed from a WG's charter, and that relevant 
internet-drafts be reclassified as personal contributions.
Lack of forward progress is one of several valid reasons to raise such a 
request.

If the WG has rough consensus on this, OR the relevant AD and WG chair 
agree, these work items will be deleted from the WG's charter.

A WG that has no work items will be closed.

Not unsurprisingly, this doesn't need a rule change, just willingness on 
the part of those who worry to stand up and be tomato target while the 
consensus is worked out.

"Share the load! You too can be a target!"

                    Harald A

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
[email-masked]

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From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 10:46:52 -0500

Harald A

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From: Dan Romascanu <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 03:05:29 +0200

Dennis,

I sympathize with your trying to solve this complex problem. However, let us
formulate it correctly. The problem is that in some cases, as work is not
performed in time, schedules are not met, and the content of the final
output is diluted or far from the original scope of the project - which was
forgotten down the road.

I am not sure that adding the rule that you propose would solve the problem.
First, there are cases when there is real need for the work to continue more
than two years, and I can remember examples of work going on for more than
two years and the time spent being to the benefit of the community. Then, a
rule like the one you describe can be bent easily - as there is no real
persistent object to describe a work item (I-D_name_string?
paragraph_in_charter_name_string?). 

What about the IESG asking the Area Directors to monitor in a stricter
manner the WGs schedules completion? Something like this was done in the
O&NM Area, and the results were not too bad.

Also, some would ask - the other way (and another thread) - what about
making these review queues, and RFC Editor queues shorter? 

...running to the shelter...

Dan

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Dennis Glatting [SMTP:[email-masked]]
> Sent:	Thu November 11 1999 15:08
> To:	[email-masked]
> Subject:	Documents need to conclude
> 
>

---

From: Dan Romascanu <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 03:05:29 +0200

Dennis,

Dan