Re: RMON document advancement

[David Kessens <david.kessens@nokia.com>]

On Fri, Dec 23, 2005 at 10:43:03AM -0800, C. M. Heard wrote:
> >>>>> On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, Andy Bierman wrote:
> Andy> [T]here are basically 2 choices:
> Andy>   1) silent option: don't ask, don't advance
> Andy>   2) nuclear option: document all the ways multi-phase MIB 
> Andy>      standards level has hampered, influenced, and even
> Andy>      damaged IETF NM standards quality
> Andy> 
> Andy> I refuse to be the only author on the nuclear option draft.
> Andy> It might set into motion a series of events I don't have
> Andy> enough time for.
> 
> >>>>> On Fri, 23 Dec 2005, David B Harrington wrote:
> David> I vote no document. Let's use what resources we have to work
> David> on network management issues rather than producing documents
> David> about IETF internal processes.
> 
> It is hard to argue with that.  Especially the part about "it might
> set into motion a series of events I don't have enough time for."
> Sometimes internal process documents are useful, or even necessary,
> but they sure eat up a lot of energy that could be spent elsewhere.

I have to disagree here. We have a serious problem in IETF that the
people who do the real work are not interested in doing anything in
the area of process improvement. The problem with that is that we end
up with a bunch of people who are only interested in process &
procedures who are determined to improve our processes by adding more
features & procedures instead of cutting them (ironically, cutting
unnecessary options & features used to be one of the old IETF core
values). And if you don't go out to vote, you won't be able to
complain about the result that will include more requirements and
framework documents, mandatory sections and other things that you can
spend a lot of time on but that do little to improve the overall
quality and throughput of IETF.

Basically, we are in a serious need for some people to finally have
the courage to actually go for the nuclear option to make sure that
the agenda for process reform gets set the proper way (eg. we discuss
making things simpler instead of more complicated).

My personal somewhat radical opinion is that we should do away with
any categorization of our documents and make them self-explanatory:
for example, if one describes an experiment, then just say so in the
abstract.

David Kessens
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