[feedback-report] [technical] ARF working group interest?

[Dave CROCKER]

Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:
>> -----Original Message----- From: Dave CROCKER [mailto:dcrocker at bbiw.net] 
>> Working groups are extremely expensive, in time and effort.  The time for 
>> deciding whether changes are needed is before wg formation, not after.
> 
> Recent chatter on the ARF list suggests that there is some momentum toward
> removing stuff from the current specification.  That's not to say there's
> consensus to do so, but there is interest in discussing it.


This suggests an avenue that might note might appear to be arguing against, but 
which is entirely reasonable within IETF framework:

     There is a solid consensus to do a particular bit of work.  A bunch of folk 
agree that the spec needs pruning or that it needs to support capability x or 
that existing capability y isn't efficient enough or...

     The charter calls for doing this work.  The wg is formed.  It 
constructively pursued doing this work.  But it discovers that it can't reach 
agreement on the details.  (And, yes, this includes failing to agree on pruning. 
  Cf., recent DKIM discussions about pruning DKIM; solid constituency for doing 
it, but failure to gain consensus for the details.)

    WG agrees that the original spec is sufficient on its own.  Submits it to 
standards track.

This is an odd version of a "failed" working group, int that it failed to make 
the changes it committed to, but it still issues an RFC.

To repeat, however:  this would be predicated on consensus about the need, 
beforehand.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net