what is a problem

Sam Hartman hartmans@mit.edu
Sun, 24 Nov 2002 14:50:15 -0500


>>>>> "Pete" == Pete Resnick <presnick@qualcomm.com> writes:


    Pete> I agree that the IESG not having a charter is not the
    Pete> problem. I agree that the IESG not being transparent is not
    Pete> the problem. However, what is "agitating" me to say that we
    Pete> need an IESG charter is that it is impossible to know what
    Pete> the problems are without first knowing what exactly it is
    Pete> that the IESG can and is doing now. For example, you say
    Pete> below:
I agree that we cannot know what problems exist without knowing what
the IESG is doing.  However I have to wonder whether we are looking
for engineering correctness or theoretical correctness.


Personally I'm much more interested in achieving engineering
correctness--in finding a process that tends to work in practice--than
in spending significant time handling potential corner cases allowed
for by a charter when those corner cases do not happen in practice.


For this reason, I believe that analysis of specific instances where
the process has failed in the opinions of some stakeholders would be
more valuable in the long term than a document describing how the
process should work at the IESG level.

I suspect that collecting data on what actually happened for specific
process failures may be difficult and that if we wish to collect this
data we may need stronger transparency in the process.


I agree that a description of the current process will be useful at
some point, I just question whether it will give us useful direction
in determining what problems we wish to solve.

--Sam