Re: The note to Tony Li about draft-ietf-isis-traffic

[Thomas Narten <narten@us.ibm.com>]

Mostly good. Some wording suggestions below.

> >From what Bill and Alex tell me, you are taking a related position as
> Bill's in the ISIS working group - that you trust your personal

I'd drop the reference to Bill in this paragraph. It's OK to mention
him in the history, but preferable not to compare them directly.

> judgment more than you do the jugment of the IETF "some time in the
> future", and that you want the ability to block changes to the
> protocol - the difference to Bill Simpson's situation being that at
> this time, apparently nobody in the WG or the IESG want changes to
> your draft.

The IESG does want changes (e.g., "reserved for cisco"). We may just
not have communicated those changes to the WG yest. Might be better to
say that at this point, there hasn't yet been a disagreement between
him and the comunity on what goes in. (and do the RTG ADs agree with
this statement?)

> In order to block technology changes, I think you have to:

> - Block someone introducing amendments in the ISIS WG using words not
>   yours.
> - Block someone introducing amendments in SC6 using words not yours.

the "not yours" is hard to understand. Maybe better to say something
like "using technical persuasion, not ownership assertion"?

> I think this is possible. But I think it will be easier if you work
> within the process to build consensus that this technology should not
> change, or should only change within sharply limited bounds.

> My main worry with this document is not this particular document, but
> the impact its publication will have as a precedent setter.

> If the IESG were to grant your request to have this document published
> with a no-derivative-rights clause, we have established a precedent.
> Next time someone wants a core IETF technology to remain under their
> personal control, this precedent will be cited.

> And if we find errors in such published documents, or the ownership of
> the right to produce derivative works grows unclear (through corporate
> mergers, bankruptcies or other maneuvers; personal illness, death or
> extended vacations; other causes one cannot imagine now), we can
> easily find ourselves in a situation neither of us want the IETF to be
> in: Where we have protocol standards with known, important errors that
> we are unable to fix.

> Out of 2145 current internet-drafts, there are 44 that use the
> no-derivative-works clause at present. I would like that proportion to
> remain low.

Red Herring. non-derivative is just not acceptable for a WG-sponsered
document. What goes on on non-WG documents is not immediately relevant
in this context.

> What do you think?

Thomas