Cross-Area Review (was: Fwd: RE: A follow up question on ietf@ietf.org)

[Dave Crocker]

Spencer,

SSD> But I am curious what the lesson might be, for those of us
SD> thinking about the problems with IETF standards process.


All sorts of very reasonable mechanisms might be specified.  Reasonable,
that is, until we note how limited folks' time and energy capacities
are.

In particular, I think that any procedure that requires others to take
the initiative and come over and check my work is not viable. It places
too much burden on then and too little motivation.  Even more
impossibly, it expects them to know *when* to do the checking.

On the other hand, I want my work to succeed and am motivated to take
whatever reasonable -- there's that word again -- steps might facilitate
that success. Although I might not know enough to guess all the
implications of decisions in my protocol design, I can make some basic
guesses, summarize them, and circulate them for review. This is made
easier, if someone tells me a simple "language" for talking about these
issues.

All of the above is the reason I proposed that working groups formulate
a consumer/provider requirements/expectation statement as early (and
as often) as they can.  If gives those outside experts something to
review that is brief and -- I believe -- stands some chance of prompting
them to think of implications of concern.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:dcrocker at brandenburg.com>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>