Discipline of Internet Protocol Engineering

[Keith Moore]

> However, I believe
> there's a more fundamental reason why some charters are or may
> need to be fuzzy. That reason has to do with the timing when
> the IETF gets involved, or the scope of the problem. 

Part of the problem may be that we often want the initial charter to map
out the entire life cycle of the group.  often this is unrealistic, because
we really don't understand what the group has to do.  I don't think we 
should try to nail down details more than about eight months (say two 
IETF meetings) in advance.  But if we don't have a good idea about what
a WG is going to be doing over the next few months, with fairly concrete,
realizable, measurable goals - something's wrong.