A 100.000 foot perspective on "what is the problem"

Harald Tveit Alvestrand harald@alvestrand.no
Wed, 11 Dec 2002 08:44:41 +0100


After a month or so of debate since Atlanta, we might actually be closer to 
crystallizing out a few core problems than we were then, even though it 
might not seem so from the number of fixes suggested....

this note tries to take the high level view (100.000 foot is about 10 times 
the ordinary "10.000 foot view", so this is VERY high....)

1) The standards activity in the WGs could function better.
   There are many causes for them not doing so, including:
   - Polarization because of company positions
   - Polarization because of human nature
   - Inability to stick to promises to do work
   - Inability to write readable technical documents
   - Lack of clue of WG chairs in how to guide consensus
   - Lack of architectural insight
   and so on and so forth.
   Most of the solutions suggested are of the form
   "clueful people must do more work".

2) The IESG does not have capacity to do more work.
   In fact, it is struggling with handling its current regime, and has a
   serious lack of breath left over for getting the 10.000 foot perspective
   back and actually changing the ways things are done, let alone catching
   up with the stuff that's been dropped on the floor over time.
   This, again, has many causes, most of them more related to scaling than
   anything else.
   The solution set seems to evolve around:
   - Get someone else to do part of the work
     (farm out policy-setting, document review, WG management....)
   - Institute rules that are simpler to manage to than current rules
   - Reduce the size of the IETF

Of course, the fact that "clueful people" in the first problem's solution 
often is shortcircuited into "the IESG" in the second problem means that 
the two problems are in destructive interference with each other - they 
make each other worse.

Does this rough bipartition of the problem space ring bells in people's 
minds?

                      Harald