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

[Mark.Jones@mail.sprint.com]

As someone trying to understand the IETF culture, this is probably the 
most enlightening thread I've seen.  Thanks.

I think the best description of the choices before the IETF were stated 
by Steve Trowbridge yesterday.  The processes defined by the IETF to 
accept and respond to liaisons are important to me, but perhaps less of 
a concern than hearing an agreement on the IETF procedures for 
addressing outside extensions to IP based protocols.

Ideally, each contribution can stand on its own merit or "weight."  
However, other organizations who use consensus as their mode of 
operation (using a different definition of consensus) complement that 
with a final voting process to clearly state the position of those 
organizations as a collective body.  The IETF can continue to address 
those contributions (liaisons) along with every other input as an ID, 
but because most every other organization has a clear liaison process, 
the IETF perspective will only be conveyed to those other organizations 
by the IETF drafts and RFCs.  Maybe there is agreement that that is 
sufficient, but it will probably not specifically address all liaison 
topics from outside organizations.

Regardless of the process that the IETF uses to address the 
contributions, network need for extensions, to address applications 
outside the IETF scope, will continue to be identified.  For that 
reason, there will be real network need for those extensions.  As Steve 
Trowbridge stated so clearly yesterday, the IETF must decide how it 
wants to respond to those outside applications.  This isn't necessarily 
a bad thing, but something we must come to accept.  The sooner an 
agreement is reached on the approach going forward, the sooner we can 
all get to work on the right solutions for the industry and get away 
from all this haggling over process and perspective.

Regards,

Mark Loyd Jones
Optical Transport and Networking
Sprint - Wireline Technology Development
913-794-2139
 

-----Original Message-----
From: zinin [mailto:zinin@psg.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 2:39 PM
To: kireeti
Cc: sjtrowbridge; ccamp; mpls
Subject: Re: I-D ACTION:draft-andersson-mpls-g-chng-proc-00.txt



<regular ietf'er hat on>

Monday, March 3, 2003, 2:26:06 PM, Kireeti Kompella wrote:
> 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.

Bingo!

It seems to me that this is the only way to ensure fairness in the
IETF, actually. Once we start introducing any sorts of preferences or
"weights", it may become a too attractive backdoor around the IETF
process.

Also, what does "weight" of a liaison or an ID really mean in a
_consensus_ based organization? That we should suddenly have a worm
and fuzzy feeling about that doc? And how does this "weight" compare
to, for example, the weight of the consensus within the IETF to not do
what's proposed, if that happens?

Alex