Re: how mobile do we want to be

[Dave Crocker <dhc2@dcrocker.net>]

 On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 12:48:43 -0500, Margaret Wasserman wrote:
>  I think that the pointers to the goals and architecture documents meet this
>  need.   You apparently don't agree.
>
>  If there is a specific change to the charter that would satisfy your
concern,
>  please send text.


Margaret,

What is particularly troubling is to see the cognizant area director and the
IETF Chair unconcerned about a draft charter that does not satisfy basic IETF
norms for charters. The current draft makes it impossible for average IETF
participants to evaluate the proposed work, without their having to explore
large amounts of text in separate documents that they must separately acquire.


Even better is that the response to expressions of concern about this is to
dodge the substance.

My previous notes were quite specific about the deficiencies of the current
draft and I explained why it is not possible for me to offer corrections.

Some of my points were quite specific.  You do not respond to them.

Yet the deficiencies are not minor and are not a matter of subjective
assessment.  The draft charter simply does not do what is required of it,
according to existing IETF rules.  Rather than follow your example and leave
the reference as "existing IETF rules", I will suggest you take a look at
RFC2418 and specifically Sections 2.1 and 2.2. This aspect of the document
does notappear to have changed from the original version that Erik Huizer and
I wrote.

Since the tone of your responses suggests that you think my concerns represent
some personal idiosynchracy, please particularly note the following text from
2.2:

     "The first
      paragraph must give a brief summary of the problem area, basis,
      goal(s) and approach(es) planned for the working group.  This
      paragraph can be used as an overview of the working group's
      effort.

      To facilitate evaluation of the intended work and to provide on-
      going guidance to the working group, the charter must describe the
      problem being solved and should discuss objectives and expected
      impact with respect to:..."

Your initial response was that this is a difficult effort to summarize.
Apparently it does not strike you as boding poorly for the likely outcome of
this work.  If the charter cannot summarize the problem and the benefit, what
are the odds that the community is going to be clear about the concrete
benefits?  For that matter, what is the likelihood that the working group
participants are going to have rough consensus about the problem, goal, or
utility?

Your only specific response is that the detailed concerns is to claim that
they are satisfied by telling the reader of the charter to go look some other
documents.  So, Margaret, the first question is which ones are those, of the
set listed in the draft charter?  All of them?  How are we to know?

Let assume that it is only a subset and that they are
draft-huston-l3shim-arch-00.txt, draft-ietf-multi6-l3shim-00.txt

Taking your specification of the subset "goals and architecure documents", I
count 17 + 27 pages.  You think it is sufficient to tell someone trying to
evaluate a charter that they have to go read 44 pages, in order to figure out
what problem the working group is going to try to solve and what the benefits
will be after they solve it.  (And I'm not bothering to try to figure out
whether those documents actually accomplish those goals.)

At some point, the IETF is going to have to return to its original concern
that its work be useful.  The first step down that path is to ensure that it
is chartering work for which there is a strong basis, in asserting
operational relevance.

  d/
  ---
  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  +1.408.246.8253
  dcrocker  a t ...
  WE'VE MOVED to:  www.bbiw.net