Re: draft-ietf-ipngwg-addr-arch-v3-11.txt

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

To review as I understand it, the IESG approved this document. Kre
appealed. The IESG responded to the appeal, rejecting it. Kre then
appealed to the IAB, which has not yet responded.

I was unaware that publication of the document had been placed on
hold. Indeed, mail from IANA at around jan 1 of this year indicated
that IANA was doing its part of the document processing. I (and no
doubt the authors/WG) are not aware of the document being on hold.

I am assuming that the RFC editor made the decision to put the
document on hold on its own rather than at the request of the IAB.

There are definitely procedural issues to consider.

In general, I'd be hesitant for the rfc editor to put holds on
documents based on filed appeals. For one thing, if folks determined
that publication could be blocked just by filing an appeal, we might
run into DOS attacks on the process. Second, appeals have not always
been dealt with in a timely fashion.  I'd hate to see a document held
up for another 6 months or more while potential appeals play
out. Finally, there are multiple rounds of appeals. Does a hold remain
in effect until all potential appeals are exhausted?

If the RFC editor were to put a hold on a document under appeal, I
think it should do so only after consulting with the relevant bodies
and getting a specific request that a hold be placed on the
document. I also don't think that should be done lightly or be the
norm. As an analogy, courts can issue preliminary injunctions in those
cases where they think there is a high likelyhood a ruling will go in
a particular direction, and that delaying acting until a ruling has
been finalized will cause significant harm. But this is done only
rarely in practice.

If a hold were to be place on a document, I think it would be wise to:

- require a explicit request from the body handling the appeal first

- the body handling the appeal should do a quick evaluation and make
  an initial judgement as to the likelyhood of upholding the appeal,
  and only hold up publication if it expects to uphold the appeal

- the body should consider whether publication needs to be delayed in
  order to have a reasonable remedy, should an appeal be upheld

- there needs to be a specific and reasonable deadline for resolving
  the appeal, so that the process does not drag out indefinitely

There are probably other factors to consider I'm not thinking of right
off. I'll also note that in the past, AFAIK, neither the IESG nor the
IAB have placed holds on documents pending appeals (e.g.,
SNMPv2). Doing so now would set a precedent that we need to think
carefully about.

Thomas