My thoughts about the problems of the IETF

[James Kempf]

> You are greatly  overestimating the efficacy of the  appeals process.
It is
> possible for  an AD (or  the IESG  as a whole)  to make decisions
which are
> arbitrary, capricious, ignorant, prejudiced,or just blatantly
political, and
> as long  as there  is no  formal violation of  process, there  is no
way to
> appeal.
>

There seems to be a common misconception in IETF that people can't
appeal a WG or IESG decision based on technical grounds. RFC 2026 is
quite clear that this is possible. Section 6.5.2 has this to say about
appeals:

   An individual (whether a participant in the relevant Working Group or
   not) may disagree with a Working Group recommendation based on his or
   her belief that either (a) his or her own views have not been
   adequately considered by the Working Group, or (b) the Working Group
   has made an incorrect technical choice which places the quality
   and/or integrity of the Working Group's product(s) in significant
   jeopardy.  The first issue is a difficulty with Working Group
   process;  the latter is an assertion of technical error.  These two
   types of disagreement are quite different, but both are handled by
   the same process of review.

The RFC then goes on to describe the appeal process.

            jak