Subject: Its about mandate RE: Why cant the IETF embrace an open Election Process

From: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 08:18:12 -0700

> From: Nelson, David [mailto:[email-masked]] 

> I think NOMCOM is like a Representative Town Meeting, in 
> which the representatives are chosen by a random selection 
> process, rather than by election.  The outcome, which 
> supports in-depth consideration and substantial, informed 
> debate, is much the same.

The NOMCON process is certainly grounded in academic theories of governance that were popular in the 80s. Many of them attempt to provide a practical implementation of Rawl's theory of justice.

The problem I see is NOT who gets elected but the lack of authority and mandate. The reason that the time spent on NEWTRACK was wasted is that nobody feels that they have a mandate to change anything.

As a result the IETF is a standards body with 2000 active participants that produces on average less than 3 standards a year and typically takes ten years to produce even a specification. 

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---

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 08:55:14 -0700

> As a result the IETF is a standards body with 2000 active participants that produces on average less than 3 standards a year and typically takes ten years to produce even a specification. 

I think Quality and Timeliness are real problems (unlike this one),
but the IETF output is much better than you suggest, and IMO it
is improving.

I do not want NOMCOM to be replaced by an election process.
I want dedicated volunteers to continue the in-depth selection
process.  I have no faith whatsoever that the community-at-large
would put any significant effort into an election process.  I am concerned
that financially motivated companies would abuse the election process
to gain more control of the IETF.  Then massive efforts would be needed
to fix the new mess.

Andy

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 10:16:11 -0700

Andy - Financially Motivated companies can maneuver and abuse the current
process ass simply as have 5 or voices on any mailing list.

What happens is that the IESG says there were be only one WG of any type and
so that eliminates because those running the WG regularly refuse to accept
initiatives with they either personally don't like or that threaten others
that are under way in their WG's...

For instance - would Harald H ever let me run an initiative through IPR? -
not a chance and his refusal to allow me to file my drafts under his WG is a
violation of the IETF charter, and tortuous interference by he and the IESG
to prevent me from 'changing how the IETF operates'.

The issue is that Peer-Review without proper oversight is an invitation to
fraud and tortuous interference with others initiatives and the IETF is hip
deep in the middle of it IMHO

Todd Glassey

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andy Bierman" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hallam-Baker, Phillip" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 8:55 AM
Subject: Re: Its about mandate RE: Why cant the IETF embrace an open
Election Process

> > The NOMCON process is certainly grounded in academic theories of
governance that were popular in the 80s. Many of them attempt to provide a
practical implementation of Rawl's theory of justice.
> >
> > The problem I see is NOT who gets elected but the lack of authority and
mandate. The reason that the time spent on NEWTRACK was wasted is that
nobody feels that they have a mandate to change anything.
> >
> > As a result the IETF is a standards body with 2000 active participants
that produces on average less than 3 standards a year and typically takes
ten years to produce even a specification.

---

From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:43:07 -0700

Sorry Andy - about that my fat fingered double SS turns 'as' into... Sorry.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "todd glassey" <[email-masked]>
To: "Andy Bierman" <[email-masked]>; "Hallam-Baker, Phillip"
<[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 10:16 AM
Subject: Re: Its about mandate RE: Why cant the IETF embrace an openElection
Process

> process

as

> simply as have 5 or voices on any mailing list.
>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 09:09:22 +0200

Phill,

> As a result the IETF is a standards body with 2000 active participants that produces on average less than 3 standards a year
> and typically takes ten years to produce even a specification.

It is well understood that the Internet mainly runs on Proposed Standards,
so the appropriate metric is how many Proposed Standards the IETF produces
a year. I think you will find that is more than three.

We are certainly slower than we should be, but I think you will find that
the typical time from a 00 draft to a Proposed Standard is significantly
less than ten years.

Let's see - HTTP/1.1 was published as Proposed Standard in January 1997,
and draft-ietf-http-v11-spec-00.txt was posted in November 1995.

    Brian

---

From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 10:12:50 +0200

Brian E Carpenter wrote:
> Phill,
>
>> As a result the IETF is a standards body with 2000 active
>> participants that produces on average less than 3 standards a year

I have to agree.  Going back to the numbers I posted to NEWTRK in March:

Status	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005
-------------------------------------------------------------
PS	102	119	71	105	103	131	169

This represents a tremendous amount of work by many people.  And so
while I *do* believe we have process problems, they are largely of the
form that we are not actually following our documented process.  I also
believe that we need to be more nimble when it comes to changing our
processes.  I would like to see both of those problems corrected in due
course.

I have not done the work to review velocity from -00 to RFC, but perhaps
Bill Fenner has.

Eliot

---

From: Jefsey_Morfin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:53:49 +0200

>a year. I think you will find that is more than three.

For humans what counts is not reality but their common vision of 
reality and the way to proceed. The Internet has dramatically 
increased this to the point we have accepted it as a virtual and a 
global world, i.e. a conceptual and geographical equivalent coverage 
to reality. The IETF is therefore in the core of this, having to 
engineer, in the reality, the support of what people are to believe 
to be their _unique_ virtuality. What Phil actually talks about is a 
TTV (time to virtuality): the time between a 00.txt and its concept 
is being globally accepted as the way most perceive as "their reality".

There are several key factors which give the feeling this process 
IETF is slow and seldom.

- deployment. This is not because people are not yet aware of them 
that things have not been settled (IESG approved, appealed, 
published, loaded on the IANA).
- lack of clear message. The RFC system is not accompanied by a 
network ontology RFCs would update. There is therefore no description 
of the virtuality the IETF develops and the world is to beleive in.
- validation by the market of the final product, instead of a 
concerted effort with all the concerned parties. The users know that 
some RFC will abort. The hysteresys is very long.
- reality is diverse, so the virtuality must be diverse to the power. 
Yet, the IETF virtuality is not. RFC 3935: IETF wants to influence 
THE way people design, use, and manage the Internet. This 
Mono-Internet vision is in opposition with the diversity of reality. 
Hence the NATs, the opposition to the single out-dated IPv6 numbering 
plan, the tensions created by the single root, the globalisation 
divide built by the way RFC 4646 is disrespected and therefore not 
interoperable.
- the increasing size of the involved users and entities, their 
relational density, and their resulting capacity to self-standardization.

There are probably others. But these already show that the IETF is 
only outdated, not when compared with the rest world (it would then 
be in advance), but when compared with its own purpose and the system 
it produces. IMHO this comes from its decision method (rough 
consensus). It is a major step _ahead_ over "democratic" votes, but 
there is still a long cultural way to reach the adequate "concerted 
consensus" necessary to the subsidiarity of our networked technical, 
societial, industrial, political diversified world.

A "concerted consensus" means that all the concerned parties are to 
be part of it, in their specific capacities and interests, and that 
the consensus is not over a single solution, but over the outcome. 
The outcome must address all the involved positions with the 
interoperable network of all the solutions each of the concerned 
party will adopt. This is more complex, but this is the way we live, 
in intergovernance. Rather than fighting NATs, we should have an 
architectural comprehensive doctrine integrating them. The same for 
the name spaces. The same for the addressing plans. My own 
difficulties in making an interoperable RFC 4646 adopted, now 
enforced, and later on protected, show that this will still take some 
time to stabilise.

jfc

---

From: "Bill Fenner" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 07:14:15 -0700

> I have not done the work to review velocity from -00 to RFC, but perhaps

I haven't; I've been concentrating on the IESG part of the document lifecycle.

  Bill

---

From: Theodore Tso <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 21:43:35 -0400

> deep in the middle of it IMHO

Todd,
	You've been warned that further outbursts containing
unprofesisonal and ad hominem messages would result in your being
banned from the IETF list.

	In my and Jordi's opinion this message has crossed the line
after repeated warnings, and so you have been banned from posting to
the IETF list for the period of 1 week.  Further violations will
increase the period during which your postings will be banned
exponentially.  (i.e., 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, etc.)

	Regards,

						- Ted

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 04:32:54 +0200

Jefsey_Morfin wrote:

> The Internet has dramatically increased this to the point we
> have accepted it as a virtual and a global world, i.e. a
> conceptual and geographical equivalent coverage to reality.
> The IETF is therefore in the core of this

But not alone, googlebot, wikipedia, and some other companies
are nearer to that core.

> the support of what people are to believe to be their
> _unique_ virtuality.

I don't believe in "unique", and I don't believe in arbitrary
borders between "real" and "virtual".  

> The RFC system is not accompanied by a network ontology RFCs
> would update.

Evolving as needed.  Today you can get human readable meta data
for RFCs with the rfc-editor.org search engine, use ietf.tools,
Bill's additional dependency tools, etc.  Some years ago I had
only a CD ROM and grep.
 
> There is therefore no description of the virtuality the IETF
> develops and the world is to beleive in.

If we're in a sub-sub-sub-thread of "newtrk" (and not "NomCom")
here, then IIRC one conclusion was that everybody is free to
write "overview" documents about everything (s)he cares about.

Getting rough consensus for a publication as an IETF RFC is of
course a separate issue.

> reality is diverse, so the virtuality must be diverse

Yes, therefore please don't write "unique" outside of contexts
where it's clear / necessary / desirable / ... (roll your own).

> IETF wants to influence THE way people design, use, and
> manage the Internet.

There's no "THE way" in RFC 3935.

> the way RFC 4646 is disrespected and therefore not
> interoperable.

You can bury that troll now, it's dead and begins to smell.

> IMHO this comes from its decision method (rough consensus).
> It is a major step _ahead_ over "democratic" votes, but
> there is still a long cultural way to reach the adequate
> "concerted consensus" necessary to the subsidiarity of our
> networked technical, societial, industrial, political
> diversified world.

The models you've proposed where apparently based on national
agencies, and I think it's ridiculous if individual experts can
hide themselves behind smoke like "Iceland does not support to
add xyz to standard abc".  And then selling the results of such
dubious activities as wannabe standards.  They almost certainly
have no mandate by (in this example) the people of Iceland.

And even if they would have that mandate, why should this be
better than the mandate of a comparable town which happens to
be no nation ?

> This is more complex, but this is the way we live, in
> intergovernance.

I'd be not suprised if "rough consensus" comes to a grinding
halt at some point.  Making it more complex isn't attractive.

Frank

---

From: Jefsey_Morfin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:25:51 +0200

Dear Frank,
the main problem in a human debate is that the different protagonists 
tend to see the world, the debate, and the vision of others through 
their own vision. If they are reasonably clever what is something I 
take for granted here, and sufficently informed (what RFC 3935 
requires), the whole issue is actually for them to progressively 
understand the others' point of view. When they have understood each 
others, the solution is usually obvious to all, or the differences 
one can manage.

The whole issue is therefore to adopt a system where:
- one can understand the others' point of view (a methodology is 
needed to make sure that no lobby exclude other positions)
- one can check the competence of the proponents. The Internet 
standard process goes into that direction when it calls for some 
network experts to be involved in new areas to network engineering. 
The education process can also help. However, humility is probably 
the best way to learn from others. This can be helped by some 
methodology. A WG should commonly produce a document, not to revise 
someone's proposition.
- one must have the appropriate medium  to express the common 
understanding. The IETF currently proceed like Nature. RFC are 
articles, calling officially for comments. This is research, not 
engineering. Engineering would result in an IETF Good Book. It would 
address reality, not document its own virtuality (cf. below).

At 04:32 19/09/2006, Frank Ellermann wrote:
>Jefsey_Morfin wrote;

?
These are content services not the network architecture. Not the same 
layer as IETF. They are nearer from people's core, not of the network's core.

They build over the IETF vision. Reread RFC 3935. The IETF technology 
is not a technology, but the technology the IETF members want, from 
their core values. This is the problem: the reference is not the 
reality, but the virtuality made of the previous RFCs.

>borders between "real" and "virtual".

This is not a question of faith. In writing this you just prove that 
you are in your own virtuality. Reality is what makes electon exist 
and move. Virtuality is everything human brains can devise to 
document it. Physical laws structure a virtuality which tries to best 
document reality. For centuries we believed in Ptolemy's system, then 
in Copernic's and Newton's law, then in Eistein's law, now we know 
from corrections that most probably all is fractal (and I think there 
is a simple, good, and universal reason for that I call syllodata, 
and I explained to Sam Hartman). Use the excel paradigm. Metadata are 
the column, syllodata are the formulas.

Reality IS. Virtuality is when you start saying you BELIEVE. A 
context is when you say "we believe".

>Bill's additional dependency tools, etc.  Some years ago I had

This is not an ontology. It certainly could help building an IETF 
vision ontology. But this is still to be done. Then, the referent 
being the IETF and not the reality, it would not be an attempt to a 
universal model but to an IETF model.

>Getting rough consensus for a publication as an IETF RFC is of

The target is not to pile virtualities. It is to document their 
aggregation, as multiple faces of reality. This can only be made in a 
concerted way. Rough consensus is not a concerted system.

>where it's clear / necessary / desirable / ... (roll your own).

I do not call for uniqueness. I oppose the uniqueness of IETF borned 
from rough consensus. At the end of the day IETF has only one 
standard, one doctrine, one RFC, one single root, one single IP 
addressing plan, one single pivotal language, one single IANA,. 
etc.  This is why I call the result the "mono-Internet".

>There's no "THE way" in RFC 3935.

Oh! yes there is. There is a full part to describe why there is only 
one way, along the IETF core values. Read in detail RFC 3935. It is 
extermely well thought and done. As are well writen RFC 3869 and RFC 
3774. Clever people have analysed the issue, proposed their comments 
and solutions. This should not be disregarded. But worked on. To 
understand what all this means and implies.

My own conclusion, from also study, analysis, and validation is that 
the "rough consensus" was a step ahead but lead to a approximative 
unique virtuality, instead of leading to a precise diversified better 
decription of reality. This impacts the whole Internet architecture, 
culture, and engineering. IMHO this is why the Internet new 
generation is blocked. Because intrinsically this "mono" nature of 
the IETF architecture is inadequate to the "multi" nature of the need.

>You can bury that troll now, it's dead and begins to smell.

Calling the core problem you do not know how to address a troll, 
certainly helps you building a virtuality. But not a virtuality which 
tries to match reality. A virtuality which cannot scale. This is why 
they called Gallileo a troll.

We wrote an IESG further documented RFC 4646. I made it acceptable to 
me from an external point of view. You are now embarassed with it. 
You disrespect it. You want to mend it. Your problem. Except that it 
makes the whole mono-Internet uninteroperable with the main purpose 
of the multi-internet, to support user diversity (see below)

>agencies,

????
Please document what leads to think this?

>and I think it's ridiculous if individual experts can

This is not what I propose.
However, this would have some guarrantee of reflecting diversity, 
what rough consensus among lobbies does not.

>better than the mandate of a comparable town which happens to

True. And why would that be better than a group of people mandated by 
their own PAC?

As Lessig wrote it, "the constitution is in the code", what means the 
standard which define the code. The IETF wants to be the place where 
these standards are written. They are/act as the founding fathers of 
what structures our today world. They have no mandate for that. 
Except their dedication and competence. As for every human groups, 
there are leaders (read RFC 3935). These leaders claim to lead 
through "influence" mechanisms, based upon "core values", to document 
the "best way" the Internet can work.

Read RFC 1958. This has a fundamental flaw. It does not scale. In my 
opinion they should work through concerted mechanisms, based upon 
consensual attempts to best observe and use reality, to document the 
diverse and hopefully consistent ways the Internet users can chose.

>halt at some point.  Making it more complex isn't attractive.

The halt of a human process is when it is no more appropriate. In 
IETF parlance, when it does not scale. Rough consensus was an 
appropriate step ahead when the IETF was a user group. There is a 
long time it is not anymore. It is an RFC knowleadgeable group. There 
are two possibilities: either it reforms itself to become a user 
group once again, or the grassroots process develops elsewhere and it 
stays interoperable.

I tend to think that the IETF cannot reform itself, because that 
reform will not only touch its inner culture, but also its technology 
(cf. RFC 3935, the IETF develops a technology along with its own 
values, i.e. its own culture). However, I also observe the result: 
most is actually made outside of the IETF, with the same kind of 
culture. With NAT like reactions as a result. This is not the best we 
could hope for.

So, we look like being in a dead-end. That dead-end is precisely RFC 
4646. Because it closes, for the IETF, the opening of the solution.

The solution is simple enough and quite usual. In perfect line with 
RFC 1958 recipes. It is to consider that the IETF virtuality (the 
mono-Internet) is not unique, and therefore can be embedded in the 
virtuality diversity of the "multi-Internet" (I suggest it is current 
default). This is all the more easy than the whole Internet layer 
itself is to be embedded in a more global user model.

The IETF only considers the Internet. The users consider the Internet 
among other solutions among other layers of interest. A user centric 
convegence permits to force the Internet to scale. However, the 
Internet must stay compatible with the user. Users are at a layer 
above the Internet. Telecoms are at hardware infrastructure plug to 
plug interconnection electrical signal centralised protocol layer. 
Internet is at software superstructure end to end interoperability 
digital data decentralised protocol layer. People are at brainware 
metastructure brain to brain interintelegibillity meaning language 
distributed protocol layer.

RFC 4646 documents the way the Internet wants to curb the upper layer 
protocols. This is a layer violation.

The way out is standard. Either  the IETF adopts a concerted 
consensus approach and supports all the upper layer protocols 
(extending the TCP/IP pile). Or the IETF consolidates its own 
virtuality and makes it interoperable with the upper layer support of 
its own protocols (an OSI like model). I said I opposed RFC 4646 
being approved until Tunis. Because the ecology of the network made 
the Tunis deal an obvious conclusion (the current Internet belongs to 
the USA, its diversification is to be discussed by the IGF). This 
settled the second approach. I find it significative that the IESG 
approved RFC 4646 only a very few hours after Gross agreed the Tunis 
deal, making approved the US Congress architectural decision by the world.

What the IGF is now to learn is how its own intergovernance will 
work. How concerted consensus is to work. These are concepts new to 
most searchers but so simple and obvious to lay people ... The 
concerted consensus (real consensus on the outcome, not necessarily 
on the decision or the solutions) is the key of the concertation (in 
that "en-EU" language they do not want) in subsidiarity that is the 
very nature of our current global world process.

Question is, does the IETF needs, want, can adapt? for which option?
jfc