Subject: RE: Working group moving forward?

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 23:35:11 +0200

Jim Whitehead wrote six weeks ago:

> Joe,
> 
> Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the WebDAV WG, and its future
> direction. Thank you as well for your contributions to this working group as
> its Co-Chair. I know well that this is a time consuming and often thankless
> task.
> 
> But (and you knew a "but" was coming :-) I do disagree with you on several
> points.
> 
> 
>> My take on what I've seen in the last several months of the 
>> WebDAV working group is that if there was to be a BOF session 
>> today, I don't see any way that a working group would get 
>> approved.
> 
> Irrelevant. In 1996 there was a clear and present need for an interoperable
> web authoring standard. At that time, the WebDAV BOF had a standing room
> crowd. Of course there would be fewer people today, just as it would be hard
> to have a broadly attended FTP BOF, or Telnet BOF. We're not in that phase
> of development. We're in completion mode, not ramp up mode. It's never
> exciting to dot the final "i" and cross the final "t".
> 
>> As far as where we are now, some of the current drafts might 
>> make much better progress as individual submissions.
> 
> This is very unclear. The progress of individual submissions in the RFC
> editor's queue, once they have received IESG approval, is glacial. They
> never turn into RFCs. Working group documents fare much better in terms of
> responsiveness.
> 
>> Keep in mind that in the current process the WG chair has to shepard 
>> WG drafts through.  As much as editors may not like this, it 
>> means that you have to get at least one WG chair fired
>> up enough about your draft to take on this responsibility. 
> 
> A Chair assumes certain duties when they take on the position of Chair. 
> 
> I do not see any process RFC that states that document authors are required
> to generate enthusiasm in their Chairs.
> 
> 
>> My guess for BIND is that either Ted or Scott would want 
>> clarification on a couple of the interoperability questions 
>> that Lisa has raised, regardless of whether the answer can be 
>> inferred by a fully-informed reader.
> 
> I agree, and applaud that you, as Chair, are helping to focus the discussion
> of the working group on productive, tangible work items.
> 
>  
>> Frankly, I don't think the working group process is adding 
>> much in the way of value for the drafts we are working on, 
>> compared with other WGs I've participated in.  As such, it 
>> may be needless bureaucracy, and we ought to think about 
>> decommissioning it.
> 
> I disagree. This working group has had a good track record over the past few
> years of shipping specifications to RFC status (3648 in 12/2003, 3744 in
> 5/2004). These specifications have had multiple implementations, and are in
> shipping code that meet thousand's of people's needs on a daily basis.
> 
> The issues raised in the recent last calls have been subtle, and resolving
> them has significantly enhanced the quality and value of the final
> specifications. IMO, this is evidence of a working group doing what it's
> supposed to do: providing careful, informed review, and producing top
> quality specifications.
> 
> I think the WebDAV Working Group can very usefully serve two more purposes,
> neither of which needs to take much time.
> 
> 1) Complete BIND.
> 2) Complete Quota.
> 
> Both are very close to completion. Once these two are done, then it seems
> reasonable to disband WebDAV WG. Given how close these two documents are to
> being done, it would be a waste of all of the effort that has gone into them
> to date to stop their development as WG items now.
> 
> - Jim

I'd really appreciate if the working group chairs would follow up. We 
need to have this dicussion.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 15:15:54 -0700

Hi Julian,

I've been completely out of touch on vacation since the last lull in 
conversation on this list.  I'm still catching up.  Joe seems offline 
today and I don't know what his status is -- likely travelling.

Lisa

On May 9, 2005, at 2:35 PM, Julian Reschke wrote:

>>> My take on what I've seen in the last several months of the WebDAV 
>>> working group is that if there was to be a BOF session today, I 
>>> don't see any way that a working group would get approved.
>>> As far as where we are now, some of the current drafts might make 
>>> much better progress as individual submissions.
>>> WG drafts through.  As much as editors may not like this, it means 
>>> that you have to get at least one WG chair fired
>> A Chair assumes certain duties when they take on the position of 
>> Chair. I do not see any process RFC that states that document authors 
>> are required
>>> clarification on a couple of the interoperability questions that 
>>> Lisa has raised, regardless of whether the answer can be inferred by 
>>> a fully-informed reader.
>>> Frankly, I don't think the working group process is adding much in 
>>> the way of value for the drafts we are working on, compared with 
>>> other WGs I've participated in.  As such, it may be needless 
>>> bureaucracy, and we ought to think about decommissioning it.

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 14:56:30 +0200

> today and I don't know what his status is -- likely travelling.

Lisa,

I fully understand that WG chairs do voluntary work, and that they can't 
always dedicate as much time they'd like to spend for WH activities; be 
it because of travel, vacation or other job-related priorities.

On the other hand, this discussion is essential for how this WG is 
supposed to operate in the future, if at all. Therefore I don't think 
it's not too much to ask the WG chairs to paticipate in this discussion.

At some point, one reasonable and likely interpretation of a WG chair's 
silence on that matter seems to be that (s)he doesn't care or even 
doesn't read the list anymore.

In that case it seems that the chair should either step down, letting 
others try to help the WG to achieve it's chartered goals, or 
alternatively, follow up with the IETF with the proposal to shut down 
(or re-charter) the WG.

At this point, the WG has three chartered deliverables:

BIND: this specification has passed *two* working group last calls, and 
at this point it's unclear to me why it hasn't been submitted to the 
IESG for publication.

REDIRECT: this spec has passed one WG last call a few years ago, and 
since then all open issues have been resolved, and at least one 
implementation exists. This spec is clearly ready for another WG last 
call or publication. If the chairs feel that it shouldn't be published 
at "Proposed" level, please clearly state this, in which case we can 
either discuss publication as "Experimental", or I'll consider a private 
submission.

RFC2518bis: no activity for almost one year, and the last draft has expired.

There's another WG deliverable, QUOTA, which isn't on the charter but 
seems to be ready for LC as well.

So by all means please follow up on both the meta issue (how the WG 
should proceed), and on the three documents that are basically done 
(BIND, REDIRECT, QUOTA). My preference would be to submit BIND for 
publication, and to WG-last-call the other two (probably QUOTA first 
because of it's simplicity). Once these are in the publication queue, 
the WG can focus on progressing RFC2518 to Draft Standard. How to do 
that best will be another interesting discussion.

Best regards, Julian

---

From: Lisa Dusseault <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 17:51:16 -0700

Hi Julian,

Joe and I are discussing these issues with Ted now that we're all back 
from various trips and absences.

Lisa

On May 16, 2005, at 5:56 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:

> I fully understand that WG chairs do voluntary work, and that they 
> can't always dedicate as much time they'd like to spend for WH 
> activities; be it because of travel, vacation or other job-related 
> priorities.
>
> At some point, one reasonable and likely interpretation of a WG 
> chair's silence on that matter seems to be that (s)he doesn't care or 
> even doesn't read the list anymore.
>
> BIND: this specification has passed *two* working group last calls, 
> and at this point it's unclear to me why it hasn't been submitted to 
> the IESG for publication.
>
> either discuss publication as "Experimental", or I'll consider a 
> private submission.
>