Internet M. Blanchet
Internet-Draft Viagenie inc.
Expires: May 27, 2003 November 26, 2002
Suggestions to Streamline the IETF Process
draft-blanchet-evolutionizeietf-suggestions-00
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2002). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
The intent is to document problems in the IETF process and to suggest
simple solutions that can be easily implemented and do not require
major changes in the IETF organisation, following the value of
"running code".
1. Use of keyword
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
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2. Document Structure
This first version of this document was written during the
presentations of the Atlanta ietf plenary on the subject of
evolutionizing the IETF. It started with the author personal views
of problems and solutions and then was revised based on feedback.
The document is structered in the following way: for each problem, a
problem statement is written and one or many solutions is listed.
Problem statements are labeled and numbered with P## and suggested
solutions with S## in order to identify them when discussing. P##
and S## numbering are independant each other and are not ordered in
any specific way.
3. Problem Statements and Suggested Solutions
o P1: WG chairs that do not understand the process cannot use the
tools available to them most effectively, and may bias or delay
the outcome of the process.
S1: WG chairs MUST be formed and know the details of the
process. New wg chairs MUST attend to wg chair "course" on
their first IETF meeting as chairs
o P2: Groups work very slowly if the chair is not paying attention,
fore example when WG chairs are busy with their own life/work.
S2: a wg SHOULD have 2 wg chairs
o P3: WG charters and requirements are not clear at the beginning
S3: before wg is started, the charter AND the requirement
document SHOULD HAVE reached concensus.
o P4: Waiting for IETF meetings to identify/reach concensus
sometimes delays too much the advancement of the working group.
Judging concensus based on mailing list comments does not usually
show the silent majority opinion.
S4: A fair concensus tool between IETF meetings is required.
An online voting tool to help sense concensus in the wg between
ietf should be available for all wg. (This topic seems
contentious in problem-statement mailing list. it could be
withdrawn in next version.)
o P5: The problems in a design that need expertise from other areas
to catch are caught late in the process, if at all.
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S5: have area experts (i.e. for each area) pre-assigned to
each wg. They report to the chairs and AD of the wg, not
theirs
o P6: Lack of transparency: design teams are perceived as a way to
bypass the wg, to push forward the opinions of the members of
these design teams. Design team member selection is often done
behind the scenes.
S6: Instead of using design teams, chairs ask many individuals
to write a document on the subject matter, and use the wg
procedures for that document.
o P7: Interim meeting are often called with not enough notice in
advance with the important information needed to schedule: agenda,
location, dates. This results in important scheduling problems
for people who want to attend the meeting. The final result is
the absence of people that could give good input.
* S7: interim meetings should be called with sufficient advance
notice (6 weeks min.) which MUST include the proposed agenda,
the location (nearest airport at least) and the dates.
o P8: Some comments are lost without being addressed by document
authors. It is hard for others to see what outstanding comments
there are.
* S8: have a formal tracking system to track document comments.
o P9: Room concensus request are often unclear and do not give good
results.
* S9: any room concensus MUST use hands NOT humms. Questions and
choices to vote MUST be written on the screen and the meaning
being verified and agreed before proceeding to the concensus
pool.
o P10: Non-English speakers find it easier to read questions from a
screen than to be sure they understand a spoken question.
S10: Chairs and proposers MUST write questions/proposals/...
on the screen before any discussion
o P11: The chairs and ADs might be seen to use their status for
pushing their own documents or proposals.
* S11: If a wg chair or AD is an author of a wg doc, he should
find a co-author and have his co-author make presentations.
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4. Security Considerations
If we don't streamline the IETF process, we might end up either:
doing too late standards to secure the Internet or pushing bad
unsecure protocols.
5. Acknowledgements
All the people involved in the idn working group helped me to learn
to try to be a wg co-chair are acknowledged here, in particular
Thomas Narten, Erik Nordmark, Harald Alvestrand, John Klensin, James
Seng and Paul Hoffman.
The new revision of the document was based on suggestions from:
Harald Alvestrand.
References
[1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[2] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP
9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
[3] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", BCP
25, RFC 2418, September 1998.
Author's Address
Marc Blanchet
Viagenie inc.
2875 boul. Laurier, bureau 300
Sainte-Foy, QC G1V 2M2
Canada
Phone: +1 418 656 9254
EMail: Marc.Blanchet@viagenie.qc.ca
URI: http://www.viagenie.qc.ca/
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