[Fwd: Re: IAB comments on draft-baker-liaisons-00.txt]

[Leslie Daigle <leslie@thinkingcat.com>]

[Dropping the doc authors for the moment.]

I feel that I have said plenty at this point, and I'm not
particularly interested in carrying this on as a personal
critique of the document.  At least one of: there are real problems to
be solved (in which case I think the IESG has something to say,
too); the IAB thinks publishing this document would be
dangerous (in which case other IAB members are welcome to 
step up and say which parts of my comments they agreed with);
there is no problem here, and we should stop wasting everyone's
time.

Leslie.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: IAB comments on draft-baker-liaisons-00.txt
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2003 14:15:33 -0700
From: Fred Baker <fred@cisco.com>
To: Leslie Daigle <leslie@thinkingcat.com>
CC: Stephen J Trowbridge <sjtrowbridge@lucent.com>,      Scott Bradner <sob@harvard.edu>, IESG <iesg@ietf.org>, iab@ietf.org
References: <5.2.0.9.2.20030817164939.053b0f30@mira-sjc5-b.cisco.com> <3F40384A.4060002@thinkingcat.com> <3F410895.1040501@lucent.com>

OK, so what I get from this ongoing dialog is that

(a) you want the ID process mentioned for things other SDOs want standardized.
(b) the IAB is indeed willing to receive documents from other SDOs in their
    format when their liaison statements are referring to their documents; 
they
    don't have to put those documents in I-D form.
(c) the IESG is going to send text regarding their concerns.

What I remain befuddled about is the formality of the interface.

What Stephen tells us the other SDOs specifically want is a formal 
structure such as is described in the document, however implemented. They 
have tried the statements@ietf.org process and find that it doesn't produce 
results (not just "doesn't produce on a schedule", but "doesn't produce 
results at all"). What he asked for in the draft sent to the IAB last 
winter and from which I started included what, at least to me, is a fair 
level of administrate manual process. I changed the manual nature of the 
process requested to a web process designed to elicit the results they 
requested; the steps are the same, what differs is the tool or lack of it.

Your key objection was that you didn't like the formality of the process - 
you didn't like the fact that when someone sends you a letter, they expect 
you to reply to it, and they might want the reply by a certain date.

Can you tell us what you want done with this? Don't take this as flip; I am 
seriously asking a question here. If your answer is "I want you to say 
'send the liaison statement to statements@ietf.org, and if we're in the 
mood we might reply'", I think Stephen's position will be something along 
the lines of "this is a waste of time; I will never get anywhere trying to 
communicate with the IETF, and will feel justified in ignoring it and 
attempting to replace it as an organization for the development of 
standards". Those aren't his words, they are what I think I would say in 
his position. If your answer is "I don't like the proposed process, and I 
have another process that I guarantee the IETF will reply to", I think 
we're all ears. If you're willing to work with the proposed process, but 
want tweaks, by all means let us know what should change.

But understand that the objective here is not to send documents to the 
IETF. It is to get replies from the IETF that are authoritative, and get 
them on a schedule. Apart from that, there is no point to sending liaison 
statements. And the ITU feels that it is not getting authoritative replies 
on a schedule.


--

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"Reality:
    Yours to discover."
                               -- ThinkingCat
Leslie Daigle
leslie@thinkingcat.com
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