Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking

[Margaret Wasserman]

>Obviously the WG chairs think that getting these products out the door is 
>more important than updating the list of milestones.
>Obviously I don't agree with them (since I bothered to complain), but I 
>haven't pushed the issue.

The question is not what you (Harald) think that is important to update
the milestones, but whether Bill or Alex thinks it is important (whichever
is the AD for OSPF).

I don't know enough about the OSPF WG to know if the chairs also do all of
the technical work.  But, it seems unlikely that updating the milestones
(just to mark what is done and clean up any glitches) is actually mutually
exclusive with continuing to move products out the door...

PLEASE NOTE:  MOST PEOPLE IN THE IETF DO NOT TAKE THE MILESTONES SERIOUSLY.
As long as that is our general culture, don't expect anyone to take
updating them seriously.  I've been trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to
change this in my groups, so that we will have goals to manage towards.
But, it isn't easy in a culture where milestones are a laughing stock.

People in my groups often seem surprised when I ask them to "sign-up"
for milestones and/or send them reminders about upcoming milestones.

>What do you think should be done *now* about OSPF?

If the responsible AD believes that a milestone update is a high priority,
he should make that clear to the chairs, and preferably include a deadline
by which the update should be completed.  Then, the chairs should update
the milestones.

If it becomes a pattern that the chairs are not responsive to the priorities
set by the AD, he should talk to them about it and try to figure out why.
But, if the chairs remain non-responsive, they should be replaced.

In this particular case (OSPF) which has been a successful WG for a
long time, the chairs should certainly not be replaced lightly or over
a relatively small thing like milestone updates (assuming that is the
only problem).

And shutting down the OSPF WG because one or two people are not doing one
relatively small aspect of their job would be incredibly silly.

Margaret