Subject: Proposal for WebDAV WG meeting agenda for 62nd IETF - Minneapolis, MN, USA

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2005 20:51:28 +0100

Hi,

unfortunately, there's still no feedback on whether there actually is a 
WG meeting in Minneapolis (no announcement, no agenda).

In case it *does* take place, here are the details:

Time: 2005-03-09T15:00:00Z (9am local time) (ics: 
<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/webdav.ics>

Room: Duluth

Text confererencing instructions: <http://www.xmpp.org/ietf-chat.html>

Audio cast: <http://videolab.uoregon.edu/events/ietf/ietf626.m3u> (see 
<http://videolab.uoregon.edu/events/ietf/> for technical information).

Below is a list of topics I'd like to see discussed.

Best regards, Julian

-- snip --

Proposal for a WebDAV WG meeting agenda

I think we need to have a meta-discussion on how the working group 
currently operates; and also discuss current technical issues with drafts.

A. Meta

The charter (<http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/webdav-charter.html>) 
has been revised just a year ago and we already have missed all milestones.

A1. What are the reasons for the apparent inability to ship specs in time?

A2. Do we need to re-adjust the charter (again)?

A3. Is the Working Group still able to fulfill it's goals, or would it 
make more sense to let the individual spec authors proceed with their 
work outside an IETF working group (for instance, the revision to 
RFC2396 was done that way)?

B. Technical Issues

B1. BIND

As far as I can tell, WG last-call has finished, and the issues that 
were raised after end of last-call do not qualify as blockers as they 
have been answered with no feedback and have no votes on them. Thus, 
draft 11 should have been sent to the IETF for publication (see 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2005JanMar/0278.html>).

B2. QUOTA

This one has been drastically simplified and thus only needs very minor 
edits for WG last-call. If the WG is really interested in getting it out 
of the door, the author(s) and the active mailing list members should 
cooperate to get the remaining issues resolved (last issues list: 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2005JanMar/0194.html>).

B3. REDIRECT

As far as I can tell, we (greenbytes) are the only ones actively working 
on this (both spec and implementation). I think the spec is very close 
to be finished; but I would prefer to have it fully implemented before 
proceeding.

B4. RFC2518bis vs separate locking document

The latest draft of RFC2518bis has expired and I haven't seen any 
activity on it for a long time. A statement from the authors would be 
appreciated.

Over a year ago I suggested an alternative approach: split RFC2518 base 
and locking protocol, then work on RFC2518bis (RFC2518 minus locking) 
and a separate locking document in parallel. RFC2518bis could probably 
be published as Draft Standard, while LOCKING (which has most of the 
changes) would need to re-start as Proposed Standard. The proposed 
LOCKING document is almost done, and could be finished with the backing 
of the WG in just a few weeks (see latest edits at 
<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-locking-latest.html>). 
I hereby ask the Working Group chairs to either fix the apparent process 
issues with RFC2518bis, or to go with the proposal made by me.

B5. PROPERTY DATATYPES

The latest draft
(<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-property-datatypes-08.html>) 
has been submitted in September 2004 to the RFC Editor for publication 
as an Experimental RFC (see status at
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/queue.html#reschke-webdav-property-datatypes>).

In the meantime I have learned that it's unlikely to be processed (which 
doesn't mean published) any time soon; this part of the RFC Editor's 
publication queue more or less is stalled. Alternatives to waiting (at 
least another year if things progress the same way as in the last 
months) are (a) making this a WG work item or (b) submitting it to our 
Area Director. As this draft describes both the consensus of the WG (as 
far as I can tell) *and* running and deployed code, (b) seems to be very 
attractive.

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 18:14:08 -0800

There is a meeting, but I didn't get any suggestions for the agenda  
until now.  Thanks for the input and broadcasting this info.

Lisa

On Mar 7, 2005, at 11:51 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> unfortunately, there's still no feedback on whether there actually is  
> a WG meeting in Minneapolis (no announcement, no agenda).
>
> This one has been drastically simplified and thus only needs very  
> minor edits for WG last-call. If the WG is really interested in  
> getting it out of the door, the author(s) and the active mailing list  
> members should cooperate to get the remaining issues resolved (last  
> issues list:  
> As far as I can tell, we (greenbytes) are the only ones actively  
> working on this (both spec and implementation). I think the spec is  
> very close to be finished; but I would prefer to have it fully  
> implemented before proceeding.
>
> Over a year ago I suggested an alternative approach: split RFC2518  
> base and locking protocol, then work on RFC2518bis (RFC2518 minus  
> locking) and a separate locking document in parallel. RFC2518bis could  
> probably be published as Draft Standard, while LOCKING (which has most  
> of the changes) would need to re-start as Proposed Standard. The  
> proposed LOCKING document is almost done, and could be finished with  
> the backing of the WG in just a few weeks (see latest edits at  
> <http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-locking- 
> latest.html>). I hereby ask the Working Group chairs to either fix the  
> apparent process issues with RFC2518bis, or to go with the proposal  
> made by me.
>
> B5. PROPERTY DATATYPES
>
> The latest draft
> (<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-reschke-webdav-property- 
> datatypes-08.html>) has been submitted in September 2004 to the RFC  
> Editor for publication as an Experimental RFC (see status at
> In the meantime I have learned that it's unlikely to be processed  
> (which doesn't mean published) any time soon; this part of the RFC  
> Editor's publication queue more or less is stalled. Alternatives to  
> waiting (at least another year if things progress the same way as in  
> the last months) are (a) making this a WG work item or (b) submitting  
> it to our Area Director. As this draft describes both the consensus of  
> the WG (as far as I can tell) *and* running and deployed code, (b)  
> seems to be very attractive.
>
>
>
>
>

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 09:51:22 +0100

> until now.  Thanks for the input and broadcasting this info.

With all due respect, it's kind of optimistic to expect others to make 
suggestions for a meeting that wasn't announced. Working group chairs 
are expected to post an agenda well before the meeting so that 
participants can prepare (in particular, to help deciding whether it 
makes sense to attend at all). As far as I can tell, the final deadline 
for this IETF meeting was over a week ago (see 
<http://www1.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg34469.html>).

Best regards, Julian

-- 
<green/>bytes GmbH -- http://www.greenbytes.de -- tel:+492512807760

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 08:15:54 -0800

We did announce the upcoming meeting Jan 27, but it appears I did 
forget to ask for agenda input at that time.  I apologize for that.

That said, the slate of documents is fairly static, so what I want to 
do is go over the open issues with the current documents. Hopefully 
there will be enough people there to make this a productive exercise.

Lisa

On Mar 8, 2005, at 12:51 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> makes sense to attend at all). As far as I can tell, the final 
> deadline for this IETF meeting was over a week ago (see

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:22:14 +0100

Lisa Dusseault wrote:
> 
> We did announce the upcoming meeting Jan 27, but it appears I did forget 
> to ask for agenda input at that time.  I apologize for that.

Well, what you did is that you reported that you asked for a meeting 
slot. I wouldn't call that an announcement. It's also not on 
www.webdav.org (where people would probably expect it).

> ...

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Elias Sinderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 09:33:16 -0800

Lisa Dusseault wrote:

> [...] Hopefully there will be enough people there to make this a 
> productive exercise. 

I'm unable to attend in person but will be logged in to the WebDAV text 
conferencing room. From reading past logs, it appears that this isn't 
the easiest, or most productive way to participate, but I'm willing to 
make the effort. Unfortunately my sound card died recently and I will 
not be able to make use of the audiocast. I will, however, log the 
session and post it to the working group mailing list.

Who will be acting as speaker for the text conference attendees? Is 
anyone else planning on participating in this fashion?

Cheers,
Elias

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 19:00:29 +0100

> make the effort. Unfortunately my sound card died recently and I will 

Great.

> session and post it to the working group mailing list.

I think it's worth to try to borrow somebody else's soundcard-equipped 
machine. I tried the audiocast on Monday and it's great for following 
the discussion.

> Who will be acting as speaker for the text conference attendees? Is 

Me.

> anyone else planning on participating in this fashion?

I hope some of the attendees will monitor the chat service.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2005 11:00:59 -0800

Yes, we always get a Jabber scribe and that scribe (or a helper) will 
tell the room when people in the Jabber chat have important stuff to 
say.  It *is* difficult, however.  (It's certainly not the easiest way 
to overcome differences and resolve difficult problems.  For that, I 
highly recommend some face to face time when possible.)

Lisa

On Mar 8, 2005, at 9:33 AM, Elias Sinderson wrote:

> I'm unable to attend in person but will be logged in to the WebDAV 
> text conferencing room. From reading past logs, it appears that this 
> isn't the easiest, or most productive way to participate, but I'm 
> willing to make the effort. Unfortunately my sound card died recently 
> and I will not be able to make use of the audiocast. I will, however, 
> log the session and post it to the working group mailing list.
>

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 21:52:10 +0100

> highly recommend some face to face time when possible.)

OK,

almost a week has passed since the meeting, and no minutes have been 
posted (will there be any????).  The Jabber log is available from 
<http://www.xmpp.org/ietf-logs/[email-masked]/2005-03-09.html> but 
that's not a replacement.

I listened to the audio cast (archived at 
<http://limestone.uoregon.edu/ftp/pub/videolab/video/ietf62/ietf62-ch6-wed-am.mp3>, 
discussion starts at around 22min), and here's *my* summary:

- Only few people attended (13 physically, a few on the text chat) - I 
don't find that surprising at all, given the fact that it wasn't 
announced in time, and no agenda was posted. In particular, with the 
exception of Lisa Dusseault, none of the authors of the current working 
group documents were present.

- The meeting ended after less than 20 minutes (instead of the 2,5 hours 
that were scheduled) and basically no technical questions were 
discussed. Considering the amount of time and money one would have spent 
in order to physically attend the meeting, I'll just note that I'm happy 
that I stayed at home.

At this point, I think it's up to the working group chairs to state how 
they want to continue with this WG (or, if they don't indend to, that as 
well). What should be obvious is that we need to change a lot of things 
if we want to fulfill what's been outlined in the charter.

Note that we don't need a WG to do useful work; but having a WG that is 
incapable of making any decisions (or shipping documents that are ready) 
means that the active contributors are basically wasting their time 
fighting process barriers instead if doing meaningful technical work.

Best regards and feedback appreciated,

Julian

---

From: "Jim Whitehead" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 17:22:50 -0800

Julian Reschke writes:

> At this point, I think it's up to the working group chairs to 
> state how they want to continue with this WG (or, if they 
> don't indend to, that as well). What should be obvious is 
> that we need to change a lot of things if we want to fulfill 
> what's been outlined in the charter.

I'm not too surprised at the lack of detailed discussion at the WG meeting
-- this is clearly attributable to the lack of an agenda, and the lack of
consensus on which document to push forward at present.

The deeper issue is whether this remains a useful working group. This
depends, in turn, on whether the group is able to perform useful work (I am
not as concerned about meeting deadlines, so long as work is progressing).

My personal feeling is that the current working group is able to perform
useful work. The recent discussion on the bind specification highlights
this, and I'll also point to the fact that we've been able to issue about an
RFC a year for the past few years. This is pretty good for a volunteer
organization, and better than many other IETF WGs.

Some point to the lack of review of the bind specification in last call. I
think this is largely due to current implementors on the list not generally
viewing that specification as a priority, and hence the main parties of
interest are the specification editors and one or two other long-time
contributors. I would not view this lack of last-call review as indicative
of the WG's inability to make progress.

My personal feeling is that this working group needs firm direction from its
chairs on what to work on next, and it also needs commitment to get
completed drafts through the approval process. I've volunteered to work on
the bind specification to get it to RFC status. Beyond this, the most
constructive step is to determine which draft to work on next.

My vote is for the quota protocol, since we have at least two very
interested implementors who want to see this completed.

- Jim

PS - When I was chair, it was rare to get meeting minutes out very quickly.
It's boring, tedious work.

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 10:27:25 -0800

> constructive step is to determine which draft to work on next.

Hi Jim,  this is great.  I appreciate your willingness to work on this 
and look forward to seeing your draft.  The other thing we'll need to 
finish Bind is a couple of serious reviews.

> interested implementors who want to see this completed.

That sounds good to me, also because the quota protocol is quite 
simple.  Again, we need a couple reviews to finish this one off.   Jim 
Luther, are you still out there?  With your early involvement in quota, 
it would be great to have a review now, even if there are no design 
issues. (At this point, finding nits is also needed).  Anybody else?

Thanks,
Lisa

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 19:52:35 +0100

> and look forward to seeing your draft.  The other thing we'll need to 

What kind of draft are you expecting? The current draft has passed the 
working group last-call, and as far as I can tell, there are no open 
issues (according to the definition in Joe's last call plan).

> finish Bind is a couple of serious reviews.

This spec has been reviewed so many times that it will be hard to find 
any new reviewer.

- First, it has gone through a working group last call back in 2000 (?)

- Then, in 2003, once Geoff Clemm had picked it up again, it has been 
reviewed and commented on by the current implementors (SAP Netweaver, 
Apache/Slide); see messages around 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2003JulSep/0132.html>.

- Then, when approaching last-call, it has been discussed again and 
again on the mailing list, culminating with the last call this January.

As far as I can tell, this draft clearly represents WG consensus *and* 
running code, and there's absolutely no reason not to submit it.

Anyway, could you please also comment on Jim's:

"My personal feeling is that this working group needs firm direction 
from its chairs on what to work on next, and it also needs commitment to 
get completed drafts through the approval process."

> issues. (At this point, finding nits is also needed).  Anybody else?

If we're really interested in that spec, we should ask the authors to 
comment on the feedback that came in for the previous draft, to resolve 
the remaining issues and to prepare a new draft for working-group last call.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 11:15:13 -0800

Hi Julian,

I know you think that there are issues remaining on Quota as well as no  
issues remaining on Bind.  I do not agree with you on Bind, and I am  
not sure that there are open issues on Quota worth pursuing.  Brian has  
done a slow but decent job of responding to the issues you've raised  
and if he followed your approach, then he would simply declare the rest  
of them closed.  Are you willing to compromise on any of the issues  
you've raised on Quota in order to see it completed?  Can you get other  
people to review Quota and either agree with your open issues or state  
that there are no blocking issues?

I agree this working group needs good leadership but it also needs  
volunteers -- more than just two or three volunteers to do the work of  
writing and reviewing -- and we need some more compromises.  I  
apologize again that we did not have an agenda for the WG meeting in  
Minneapolis, but I will point out again that we got no suggestions for  
the agenda until the week before the meeting.  Previous meetings which  
were better organized still had attendance problems and a poor record  
of accomplishing any progress. For example, in Washington we had the  
same issues we have today, the same few people participating.  We could  
have cancelled the Minneapolis meeting rather than create an agenda,  
but as for myself, I wanted to give the WG one last chance for parties  
to get together and communicate and compromise.

Lisa

On Mar 17, 2005, at 10:52 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:

>> Hi Jim,  this is great.  I appreciate your willingness to work on  
>> this and look forward to seeing your draft.  The other thing we'll  
>> need to
>
> from its chairs on what to work on next, and it also needs commitment  
> to get completed drafts through the approval process."
>
>
>> simple.  Again, we need a couple reviews to finish this one off.    
>> Jim Luther, are you still out there?  With your early involvement in  
>> quota, it would be great to have a review now, even if there are no  
>> design issues. (At this point, finding nits is also needed).  Anybody  
>> else?
>
> comment on the feedback that came in for the previous draft, to  
> resolve the remaining issues and to prepare a new draft for  
> working-group last call.
>
>
>
> Best regards, Julian
>
> --

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 20:42:44 +0100

> issues remaining on Bind.  I do not agree with you on Bind, and I am  

Lisa, we have a WG process for defining what an open issue is. This has 
been outlined by Joe, and everybody agreed to stick to it. Based on that 
process, there are no issues. If you disagree with this statement, 
please be more specific.

> of them closed.  Are you willing to compromise on any of the issues  

...in which case we'd start a last call, open a Bugzilla section for it, 
and follow our process for dealing with them. Fine with me.

> that there are no blocking issues?

Please do us all a favor and please read what issues exactly I raised 
(see 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2005JanMar/0103.html>).

> the agenda until the week before the meeting.  Previous meetings which  

Well, in which case I'll have to point out that there was no 
announcement whatsover. Please do not complain about the fact that 
*others* haven't been doing the work that's supposed to be done by the 
chairs.

By the way: there was exactly one agenda proposal, and as far as I can 
tell, it has been ignored by the chairs.

> to get together and communicate and compromise.

I guess we'll continue to disagree here. There was no announcement, no 
agenda, and the meeting was closed after less than 20 minutes although 
there were unanswered questions on the Jabber chat (by Bernard D. and 
myself).

It would be nice if we could now get back to the open issues we have to 
resolve. How about starting with the agenda that was proposed by me in 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2005JanMar/0293.html>?

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:37:18 +0100

> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2005JanMar/0103.html>).

Sorry, that should have been 
<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/2005JanMar/0194.html>.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Jim Luther <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:58:27 -0800

On Mar 17, 2005, at 10:27 AM, Lisa Dusseault wrote:

> Jim Luther, are you still out there?  With your early involvement  
> in quota, it would be great to have a review now, even if there are  
> no design issues. (At this point, finding nits is also needed).   
> Anybody else?

Yes, I'm still lurking. I'll give the latest quota draft and Julian's  
issues at <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-dist-auth/ 
2005JanMar/0194.html> another look.

- Jim

---

From: Elias Sinderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 08:42:27 -0800

Hi,

I've been meaning to add my few cents to this thread since it was first 
posted and only now have found the time (danged work schedule) - my full 
response will be split across a couple / few thread and messages but can 
basically be summarized by the following two points:
* I think the WG may be sick, but it isn't dead (or necessarily dying, 
for that matter, but perhaps tired...)
* There is work to be done and doing so within the context of the WG 
makes far more sense than otherwise

Julian Reschke wrote:

> <http://www.xmpp.org/ietf-logs/[email-masked]/2005-03-09.html> 
> but that's not a replacement.

+1, I read the jabber log but there wasn't much there.

> I listened to the audio cast [...]

Ah, thanks for that, I didn't realize it had been archived.

> exception of Lisa Dusseault, none of the authors of the current 
> working group documents were present.

I can only speak for myself but without grant money, or the backing of 
my employer (unlikely at best), I'll *never* be able to attend in person 
unless a meeting is held in the Bay Area.

> - The meeting ended after less than 20 minutes (instead of the 2,5 
> hours that were scheduled) and basically no technical questions were 
> discussed.

 From what I can tell, neither the proposed agenda (Julians') nor the 
stated agenda (from Jabber log) was followed closely or, at the very 
least items on the agenda were only addressed superficially. It would 
appear that items were tabled prematurely while there were still open 
questions and discussion to be finished. IMHO, the standing agenda for 
*any* working group meeting should be:
(1) review the charter and current status / progress on WG deliverables 
and stated milestones
(2) discuss each of the active documents in turn
    (a) address any open issues or concerns, seeking partial resolutions 
wherever possible to be ratified by the larger WG on the discussion list
    (b) make note of who is volunteering to follow up on action items, 
i.e. shephard the ensuing discussion on the mailing list, make edits to 
documents, etc.
(3) drink

Given the passionate discussion on the mailing list over some of the 
existing issues, I find it hard to believe that 2.5 hours would be 
enough time to meet in person and give a fair treatment to everything 
that should be on the table.

> [...] Note that we don't need a WG to do useful work; but having a WG 
> that is incapable of making any decisions (or shipping documents that 
> are ready) means that the active contributors are basically wasting 
> their time fighting process barriers instead if doing meaningful 
> technical work.

I'll address this a little more in subsequent emails but, as above, I 
feel there is significant benefit to working within the context of a 
formal IETF WG (visibility, established process, etc.). From what I can 
tell, going it alone greatly reduces the chance that any draft will make 
much progress in the long term.

Inlakesh,
Elias