Re: I-D ACTION:draft-andersson-mpls-g-chng-proc-00.txt

[Kireeti Kompella <kireeti@juniper.net>]

Hi Steve,

On Mon, 3 Mar 2003, Stephen Trowbridge wrote:

> There is no doubt that liaisons CURRENTLY have no more wieght than
> individual IDs

This might be a fundamental difference between the IETF and other SDOs,
the ITU in particular.  However, that still doesn't mean that this
policy of the IETF's is wrong.  I happen to think that taking everything
at its own merit rather than considering where it came from is the most
democratic, equal opportunity means of handling it -- but that's a
personal philosophy, not necessarily echoed by the IETF.

That said, if liaisons truly have lower priority than individual IDs,
it is more the vehicle (emails, notes posted to the liaison web page,
etc.) than the source or the content.  One the advice of a wise person,
I have started (belatedly) posting to the CCAMP list that such liaisons
exist.  Note that I don't need to do that for IDs -- the authors generally
do that, and there is a mailing list that one can subscribe for this.

> But it is my opinion that the lack of a liaison process is really
> the ROOT CAUSE of difficulties like what we saw in January.

If we really do a root cause analysis, it comes down to this (IMO):
a) CCAMP gets a liaison statement stating that certain changes are
   requested in the GMPLS specs (doesn't get posted to the list, though).
b) CCAMP doesn't officially respond (mechanisms not in place).
c) CCAMP WG gets requirements via Zhi's and Osama's drafts.
d) CCAMP mailing list hosts discussions about whether these requirements
   make sense in the IETF context.
e) In the interest of quick allocation of code points, these two docs
   are made Informational, and go through without much review.
f) Various folks (CCAMP, RSVP, MPLS, ...) are very concerned about the
   changes made to RSVP and CR-LDP.

(The intent here is not to point fingers, although I've already claimed
my share of the blame.)

I see (b) and (e) as the most serious breakdowns in the process.  The
GMPLS change doc should help alleviate (e), and hopefully help (a) as
well.  And if we get started on the liaison doc, that should help (b).

Or we could keep talking :-)

Kireeti.