A 100.000 foot perspective on "what is the problem"

[RJ Atkinson]

On Saturday, Dec 14, 2002, at 11:33 America/Montreal, Natale, Robert C 
(Bob) wrote:
> The IAB needs to be more active in terms of architecture
> guidance,

	Speaking as an individual, I'll note that when the IAB does provide
architectural guidance, it often receives significant push-back from
the technology advocates that the guidance is directed towards.  Since
"too much architectural guidance from on high" is part of why the IETF
re-organised itself after the Cambridge Tea Party in July 1992, removing
much of the former IAB's responsibilities, the current IAB tries hard
not to over-do the architectural advice while still providing it when
essential.

	If the community as a whole wants more IAB advice given, even when
not everyone will like the contents of that advice, then this is 
something
that needs to get worked explicitly into any BCPs that result from the
current organisational review activity, IMHO.

> the IESG needs to be more aggressive in terms of steering the
> efforts of the IETF, and the WG chairs needs to be more decisive in 
> guiding
> their groups to focus and consensus.

	At least some folks' postings here seem to indicate that some
folks think the IESG is currently too aggressive in steering the
efforts of IETF...

	My own personal view is that there might be a bi-modal distribution
within the IETF membership, with one peak around the "less IAB/IESG
interference, less process, faster to RFC" school-of-thought and another
peak around the "more IAB advice, more IESG leadership, only publish 
really
high quality RFCs", with a significant multi-dimensional continuum 
between
those two peaks.  So I have a hard time figuring out where the 
community's
"rough consensus" position lies (and am glad that I'm not the stuckee 
for
puzzling out where the IETF should go next).

Ran