Killing old/slow groups - transition thinking

Scott Bradner sob@harvard.edu
Tue, 10 Dec 2002 08:38:59 -0500 (EST)


> Perhaps the perceived problem with Informational RFCs is that
> they create a feeling of an IETF standard without actually
> being one.

While this is an issue, the reason the IESG review step was
added to the process was mainly to deal with attempted end-runs
around a woking group.  i.e., someone whos proposal does
not get working group support attempts to publish their own
document before the working group document can get published and 
thus get their "IETF approved" technology to the market first.
This is not just a theoretical  problem :-).

As an IESG member I use this review process to do two things:

1/ look for end runs around working groups in my areas - if I 
   see something that looks like an end run I ask the chairs of 
   the relevent working group(s) to take a look
2/ look for things that would hurt the net if the technology were
   deployed (for me this means making sure that there is reasonable
   congestion control)

I generally do not read such documents in detail, instead focusing on
these two things.

Other IESG members look for other things, security, correctly formatted 
MIME requests etc, and some IESG members do detailed reviews 
so they can provide (hopefully useful) feedback to the authors.

Scott