what is a problem

[Pete Resnick]

On 11/13/02 at 6:23 PM -0500, Leslie Daigle wrote:

>I would argue that the IESG not having a charter is not the problem 
>[0]. The IESG not being transparent is not the problem.
>[...]
>[0] Note that I am not saying: I don't believe an IESG charter 
>should exist.  I'm saying it's not what we need to discuss first. 
>What is agitating people that causes them to say "we need an IESG 
>charter"?

Since this doesn't ever seemed to have been answered by anyone, and 
since I brought up the topic at the IESG plenary this time, I thought 
I might make an attempt to answer your question:

I agree that the IESG not having a charter is not the problem. I 
agree that the IESG not being transparent is not the problem. 
However, what is "agitating" me to say that we need an IESG charter 
is that it is impossible to know what the problems are without first 
knowing what exactly it is that the IESG can and is doing now. For 
example, you say below:

>A problem, for example, from an AD perspective, may be that ADs have 
>the responsibility for making sure that stuff that goes through IETF 
>process produces implementable, reasonable standards. And yet they 
>only have 2 checkpoints in a work item's history:  WG chartering 
>time, and document publication time.

Well, that's very interesting. I can't find anywhere in 2026 or 2418 
that says the above. What you say here may in fact be a problem from 
an AD perspective, but unless we know what it is that the IESG's 
actual charter is, we don't know if this is really a problem.

For example, it might be a problem from a document author's 
perspective that a single AD can permanently stop a document from 
being published, even if there is rough consensus in the rest of the 
IESG to publish the document, without a formal rejection which is 
"accompanied by specific and thorough arguments from the IESG" as is 
required by 2418. My understanding (which is completely through word 
of mouth) is that an AD "discuss" vote can be used in this way. Now, 
do I know that this has been a problem? No, I don't, because the IESG 
has never published a charter which outlines this as a possibility, 
nor do I know if any specific document I've worked on has been in 
this state (though I have a strong suspicion that one document I 
edited may have been in this state for some time). If the IESG wrote 
down what it has been doing, we could determine rather easily if this 
was a problem.

And let's not get bogged down in the word "charter". I really don't 
care if there is a document that describes the mission of the IESG or 
of the IETF as Harald has described "a charter"; with all due 
respect, I think this is just setting up a straw man. All I want is a 
document that describes the *current* policies, procedures, and 
powers of the IESG that are in effect now, not what we think any of 
those should be. (Of course, such a document can *only* come from the 
IESG themselves, because the IESG is the only set of folks who 
actually know this information.) If later we feel that we need a full 
charter, which might include a mission statement of both the IESG and 
the IETF, we can get to that. But until someone writes down the 
current state of affairs, I don't see how we can figure out what any 
problems might be with the IESG.

I find all of this dodging and weaving on writing down what the IESG 
is currently doing both frustrating and depressing. And that's a 
problem.

pr
-- 
Pete Resnick <mailto:presnick@qualcomm.com>
QUALCOMM Incorporated - Direct phone: (858)651-4478, Fax: (858)651-1102