Subject: [Rfcplusplus] What do we want to give up? (was Re: Appeal of IESG Conflict Review process and decision on draft-mavrogiannopoulos-pkcs8-validated-parameters-02)

From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2018 11:46:23 -0400

Dear colleagues,

On Sat, Jul 07, 2018 at 03:40:43PM -0400, John C Klensin wrote:
> IESG,
> 
> After a discussion with the IETF Chair as required by RFC 2026
> and concluding that discussion could not satisfy my concerns,
> this note constitutes an appeal of the conflict review decision
> on draft-mavrogiannopoulos-pkcs8-validated-parameters-02 posted
> last month.  Because IESG conflict review decision are not
> binding on the Independent Submission Editor, this appeal is not
> a request that the IESG take a different position on that
> document but about the mechanisms, reasoning, and process that
> appear to have been followed in this case (including what appear
> to be some substantive errors in that process).

[…]

I don't wish to discuss the particulars of John's appeal here, because
it is ongoing, but given that it is an appeal that is not expected
(even by the appellant's note) to produce any result in the specific
case I guess it's ok to use it as an example[1].

It seems to me that the appeal might well be understood as claiming
the IESG did not do its job because it did not provide an "appropriate
justification" for its conclusion that the I-D in question conflicted
with IETF work.  I observe that the conflict review is not only for
things that clearly conflict in a formal sense, but also in "the case
where there is a proposed change or extension to an IETF protocol that
was not anticipated by the original authors and that may be
detrimental to the normal usage of the protocol."  [RFC 5742]

The question I have for this list is whether we think this is the best
use of IESG time.  The IESG is busy, and annually during the nomcom
periods there is hand-wringing about the time committment that the AD
role takes.  Every thing we ask the IESG to do is time that is used up
and therefore potentially taken away from processing IETF documents
and undertaking other IETF business.  Reviewing Indepndent Stream
documents is one of those things we are asking for.

Since the Independent Stream is, by definition, not the IETF's
business, we are faced with a basic question: does the Internet as a
whole benefit from the conflation of "RFC", "standard", and "IETF
product" that is manifest in the Internet community[2]?  I have seen
on this list a number of arguments to the effect that the Internet
does benefit from that, but I think this appeal provides some evidence
to the contrary.

In our protocols, we generally take the stance that, if the
interoperating Internet is at odds with what the protocol documents
actually say, then the documents are wrong.  We don't, of course,
always fix it; but that failure to fix is _itself_ a part of IETF
culture, and we make (sometimes not too gentle) fun of the "weenies"
and "mafia" who enforce their narrow view in the documents when
everybody knows that's not how things work.  I suggest that the
insistence that "RFCs are not always IETF documents" is true to us,
and to approximately nobody else.  We collectively spend a significant
amount of IESG time reviewing these things so that the series doesn't
contradict itself except on purpose and explicitly (e.g. when we
deprecate something).

I think it would be useful for BoF particpants to ask themselves
whether that is the best contribution to the Internet of the finite
quantity of time we have to spend on these matters.  We will have to
give up something.  Either the IESG can be required to review all the
things that might impinge on protocols and might be called "RFC", or
we can stop calling them RFCs and therefore stop asking the IESG to do
this monitoring.  Which gives us more value?

Best regards,

Andrew (only for myself, of course)

[1] It might be tempting to some to explore the utility of appeals
that are not intended to change anything.  Fortunately, this is not
the list for such inquiry, so I earnestly hope we will not be
distracted by that topic.

[2] Even modest Googling efforts show this up pretty quickly.  From my
location just now, a search for "RFC definition" yields as its first
result a page that claims RFCs come from the IETF even though they're
not all standards.  Next is the Wikipedia page, then another page that
appears to be a copy of the first one, then another definition that
claims the IETF is always in charge and that any document can become
an Internet Standard.  The next one is a mash-up site that leads to
yet another site with an ostensive definition of RFC that barely
touches on how they work.  At the bottom of that first page is RFC 2119.

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
[email-masked]

---

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2018 14:17:37 -0400

> this monitoring.  Which gives us more value?

I didn't read the appeal the same way you did.  I read it as in the
IESG didn't document the reasons for the recommendation as part of the
conflict review and there were a few reasons in looking at the
document that the IESG recommendation didn't make sense.  Typically,
there is reasoning provided with these reviews if the response is  one
as strong as Do Not Publish and that explanation was lacking in this
conflict review.  The reviews don't take a lot of time even noted by
Martin in his draft.

Is the BoF about something other than what it's purported to be?  A
clear problem statement would be very helpful.

> distracted by that topic.

I think the reporting out on conflict reviews may have been an
intended target for change.  More information is normally provided, so
this was out of the ordinary in terms of the ballot information and
write up from the IESG.

Best regards,
Kathleen

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-- 

Best regards,
Kathleen

---

From: Martin Thomson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2018 06:54:57 +1000

> conflict review.  The reviews don't take a lot of time even noted by

Kathleen's assessment of the cost of conflict review here more closely
matches mine (not as much the appeal, but I'm not going into that).
That is, the IESG - in determining whether there is a conflict - does
not spend inordinate amounts of time on independent submissions.  But
that is primarily because this is explicitly not a technical review.
My impression is that Andrew's comment is addressed at the technical
quality of documents.