John, Thank you for your considered response and helpful comments.
While I'm sure that others will no doubt respond to your note, as you've addressed the note specifically to Marshall and myself as listed authors of the IETF pact draft, I'd like to respond to your note in the areas where you have commented on the draft, and take the opportunity to provide some degree of personal motivation as to why the document advocated specific actions and not others. Obviously Marshall as co-author can respond from his perspective. The first is that I'd like to highlight a difference of scope in the draft note and your response. The draft took a deliberately focused perspective in looking at the relationship between the IESG and Working Groups, and looked at various measures that could have a positive impact on the IETF's process in terms of its predictability, accountability, competency and timeliness. It is certainly possible to look at the entirety of the roles of the ADs and IETF chair and make comment on various measures that could allow the ADs to focus on a certain set of tasks while suggesting that other tasks be undertaken in different ways. I note that you have indeed taken this broader approach and made some observations concerning the process of the review of individual submissions to the RFC Editor, the broader role of the RFC Editor, the role of involvement as an expert reviewer of protocol parameter registration requests for the IANA, and the potential role of additional support staff within the IETF structure rather than a heft reliance on ADs and the IETF chair to do both what could be termed "high level" and "low level" tasks. There are many implications of taking such a broader review and in advocating various measures there are consequent issues concerning the resource requirements to undertake such measures, the means by which such resources could be secured by the IETF and the implications on the nature of the IETF in each of the various funding scenarios. It is possible, indeed probable that in taking on such a broad agenda, consideration of such issues may well concentrate issues that may or may not be central to the thrust of the advocated measures, and that the momentum for any form of change could well be lost. I am sure that we can all relate first hand experiences in our lives where such as been the case. Accordingly, I can respond by saying that while I appreciate that there are broader issues here, the decision to document a focused set of issues and propose a number of measures was indeed a deliberate decision. Part of the motivation is that the measures are considered to be within a set of conceivable and achievable outcomes, that I would say a beneficial for the IETF to consider. You identify some level of tension between timeliness and competency. There is a balance to be struck here for, as the draft notes, a tardy document is also lacking in utility and its competence is validly questionable in that it then documents history, rather than documenting standards for internet technologies and their application in a way that is of material benefit to the broader industry. As a (perhaps overly trite) summary of the balance to be struck here, the balance is between the aphorisms that "good work takes time" and "too little too late" The draft takes the stance that the process is overly slow and the cost lies in the relevance and utility of our outputs. To the extent that you are arguing that there is a balance to be struck here obviously I can agree with you here. To the extent that you may be advancing the view that we are currently working in a "fast enough mode and too faster would be a problem in terms of quality of output" then I find myself with a different personal perspective. You argue that the balance needs to be an explicit decision, and in that I can certainly agree. Your note suggests that by bounding the outcomes on WGs there is an involvement for realistic requirements on IESG in terms of the turnaround of documents and questions, etc. While the draft does not explore the issues relating the turnaround relating to queries, the draft does advocate a bounded model of IESG discussion on a WG document. I am unsure as to how one should interpret your comment relating to the conflict between the roles of technical oversight and process management and the role standards approval and certification. To the extent that one can observe that there are remarkably few approved and certified standards ever produced by the IETF (58 in total, and none since September 2000) then either this conflict is so large that it is unworkable, or the full standards process is no longer relevant to us, and that we have no interest in progressing documents all the way through such a process. You appear to be saying that a greater level of area focus within the IESG, as proposed in the draft is reasonable, but then offer the view that there exist a class of WGs that do not have a clear means of associating the WG within an area, and that the proposal does not appear reasonable to you for this class of WGs. You also note that the support of the responsible ADs far outweighs the objections of a single AD. Yes, this is true, but in considering this, isn't it then incumbent on the objecting AD to be able to advocate the reasons for objections to the other ADs in the IESG and do so in a manner that has sufficient credibility and substance such that the view has significant support within the IESG that this is indeed a credible and competent objection that has not been appropriately considered by the WG? Any delegation of role requires trust, and, yes there is, to some extent an advocacy of a delegation for the responsibility of competence to the area and the working group chair and an associated trust that the outcomes are indeed competent and well reviewed. The opposite of such trust models are models of mutual distrust and suspicion, and operating under such models is often time consuming, inefficient, and often highly stressful. You characterize the proposals in the draft as tending to reinforce some of today's bad behaviours, while I would indeed argue that they are intended to produce the opposite outcome. Your note indicates that there exists a class of WGs for which the bounded outcome model will clearly fail, but your discussion of this item then talks about the manner in which the IESG should assess a WG proposal for which there is only narrow but intense and articulate interest. You then propose that the chartering of a WG should be debated in an open forum that can allow the IESG to achieve clear guidance. The draft proposes that WG charters should use a utility focus, describing the problem or intended benefit, the intended beneficiaries and the likely areas of difficulties that may be anticipated. To the extent that the draft does nopt specifically address the manner by which a WG chartering decision should be made by the IESG in terms of any specific proposals for change, your proposal here and the draft do not appear to be in any area of conflict. Finally you note that the IESG doesn't often "reject" a document, and you voice the opinion that perhaps it should do so more often. The observation I have heard often is that there are cases where a document may stall in the IESG for an indeterminate period of time. Perhaps this is worse than rejection, in that the working group is now not in a position to directly "unwedge" to document. The draft attempts to address this by proposing that IESG consideration of WG documents is undertaken within a bounded process. The second part of your comment refers to suggestions for structural change, and I suspect is addressed to the IETF community in general rather than more directly to Marshall and myself as the listed authors of the pact draft. As I have already taken up probably too much reader's time and patience in this response, I trust you will excuse me if I do not continue here with any specific comments on your suggestions. kind regards, Geoff Huston