Internet DRAFT - draft-nottingham-gendispatch-discuss-criteria
draft-nottingham-gendispatch-discuss-criteria
Network Working Group M. Nottingham
Internet-Draft 24 July 2023
Updates: 2026 (if approved)
Intended status: Best Current Practice
Expires: 25 January 2024
DISCUSS Criteria
draft-nottingham-gendispatch-discuss-criteria-01
Abstract
This document describes the role of the 'DISCUSS' position in the
IESG review process. It gives some guidance on when a DISCUSS should
and should not be issued. It also discusses procedures for DISCUSS
resolution.
About This Document
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Status information for this document may be found at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-gendispatch-
discuss-criteria/.
information can be found at https://mnot.github.io/I-D/.
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/mnot/I-D/labels/discuss-criteria.
Note to Readers
This document is currently a copy of the DISCUSS criteria published
at https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/iesg-discuss-
criteria/ (https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg/statements/iesg-
discuss-criteria/); the only changes are to the material in the
Introduction regarding the status of the document.
As such, it serves as a proposal: to put control over the criteria
that the IESG uses to evaluate documents in the hands of the IETF
community.
Because the balloting system is not defined by RFC, an unresolved
issue is how that should be referred to. Two possible options are a)
also publishing it a BCP, or b) abstracting this document to talk
about the general criteria that the IESG can use to hold up
publication of a document, without using the 'DISCUSS' terminology.
Nottingham Expires 25 January 2024 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft DISCUSS Criteria July 2023
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 25 January 2024.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2023 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components
extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Document Classes Reviewed by the IESG . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Protocol Action Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. DISCUSS Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. DISCUSS Non-Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.3. Saying No to A Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. DISCUSS Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Nottingham Expires 25 January 2024 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft DISCUSS Criteria July 2023
1. Introduction
The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) is responsible for the
final review of IETF documents. Members of the IESG have the option,
when they review a document, of stating a 'DISCUSS' position. The
DISCUSS identifies one or more issues that must be discussed in
relation to the document before the document can become an RFC. As
such, 'DISCUSS' is a blocking position; the document cannot proceed
until any issues are resolved to the satisfaction of the Area
Director who issued the DISCUSS. For cases where the reasoning for
an unresolved DISCUSS does not reflect the consensus of the IESG,
override procedures can be invoked to unblock documents.
The criteria set forward in this document are intended to serve two
purposes: to educate and to improve consistency. When new members
join the IESG, it might not be immediately clear when it is
appropriate to issue a DISCUSS and when a non-blocking comment should
be preferred. Even among the standing IESG (at the time this
document was written), it is clear that different Area Directors use
different criteria for issuing a DISCUSS. While this is not innately
problematic, greater consistency in evaluating the severity of an
issue would reduce unnecessary document delays and blockages.
This document approaches IESG review of Proposed Standard documents
as a review of "last resort". Most such documents reviewed by the
IESG are produced and reviewed in the context of IETF working groups.
In those cases, the IESG cannot overrule working group consensus
without good reason; informed community consensus should prevail.
These criteria are not intended to constrain the IESG from issuing
DISCUSSes on documents that are genuinely problematic, but rather to
set reasonable expectation among the IESG and the community about the
propriety of and justification for blocking IETF documents.
2. Document Classes Reviewed by the IESG
The IESG reviews several classes of document, and applies different
criteria to each of these document types. The exemplary questions
that follow appear on each IESG agenda to remind the Area Directors
of the appropriate level of review for these classes:
Protocol Actions: "Is this document a reasonable basis on which to
build the salient part of the Internet infrastructure? If not,
what changes would make it so?"
Document Actions (WG): "Is this document a reasonable contribution
to the area of Internet engineering which it covers? If not, what
changes would make it so?"
Nottingham Expires 25 January 2024 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft DISCUSS Criteria July 2023
Document Actions (Individual): "Is this document a reasonable
contribution to the area of Internet engineering which it covers?
If not, what changes would make it so?"
Document Actions (from RFC-Editor): "Does this document represent an
end run around the IETF's working groups or its procedures? Does
this document present an incompatible change to IETF technologies
as if it were compatible?"
Of these document classes, the fundamental distinction between
"Protocol Actions" and "Document Actions" involves the relation of
these documents to the IETF Standards Track. Only Standards Track
and Best Common Practice documents are considered for "Protocol
Action"; Informational and Experimental documents are considered for
"Document Action".
Protocol Actions are naturally subject to greater scrutiny than
Document Actions; Area Directors are not even required to state a
position on a Document Action (the default being "No Objection").
Accordingly, the exact criteria used to evaluate Protocol Actions
would benefit from greater scrutiny. The remainder of this document
focuses on the use of DISCUSS for standards-track and BCP documents.
3. Protocol Action Criteria
3.1. DISCUSS Criteria
The following are legitimate reasons that an Area Director might
state a DISCUSS position on a Protocol Action. This cannot be an
exhaustive list, but this set should be taken as exemplary of the
common causes for DISCUSSes seen by the IESG in the past.
* The specification is impossible to implement due to technical or
clarity issues.
* The protocol has technical flaws that will prevent it from working
properly, or the description is unclear in such a way that the
reader cannot understand it without ambiguity.
* It is unlikely that multiple implementations of the specification
would interoperate, usually due to vagueness or incomplete
specification.
* Widespread deployment would be damaging to the Internet or an
enterprise network for reasons of congestion control, scalability,
or the like.
Nottingham Expires 25 January 2024 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft DISCUSS Criteria July 2023
* The specification would create serious security holes, or the
described protocol has self-defeating security vulnerabilities
(e.g. a protocol that cannot fulfill its purpose without security
properties it does not provide).
* It would present serious operational issues in widespread
deployment, by for example neglecting network management or
configuration entirely.
* Failure to conform with IAB architecture (e.g., [RFC1958], or
[RFC3424]) in the absence of any satisfactory text explaining this
architectural decision.
* The specification was not properly vetted against the I-D
Checklist. Symptoms include broken ABNF or XML, missing Security
Considerations, and so on.
* The draft omits a normative reference necessary for its
implementation, or cites such a reference merely informatively
rather than normatively.
* The document does not meet criteria for advancement in its
designated standards track, for example because it is a document
going to Full Standard that contains 'down references' to RFCs at
a lower position in the standards track, or a Standards Track
document that contains only informational guidance.
* IETF process related to document advancement was not carried out;
e.g., there are unresolved and substantive Last Call comments
which the document does not address, the document is outside the
scope of the charter of the WG which requested its publication,
and so on.
* The IETF as a whole does not have consensus on the technical
approach or document. There are cases where individual working
groups or areas have forged rough consensus around a technical
approach which does not garner IETF consensus. An AD may DISCUSS
a document where she or he believes this to be the case. While
the Area Director should describe the technical area where
consensus is flawed, the focus of the DISCUSS and its resolution
should be on how to forge a cross-IETF consensus.
3.2. DISCUSS Non-Criteria
* Disagreement with informed WG decisions that do not exhibit
problems outlined in Section 3.1. In other words, disagreement in
preferences among technically sound approaches.
Nottingham Expires 25 January 2024 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft DISCUSS Criteria July 2023
* Reiteration of the issues that have been raised and discussed as
part of WG or IETF Last Call, unless the AD believes they have not
been properly addressed.
* Pedantic corrections to non-normative text. Oftentimes, poor
phrasing or misunderstandings in descriptive text are corrected
during IESG review. However, if these corrections are not
essential to the implementation of the specification, these should
not be blocking comments.
* Stylistic issues of any kind. The IESG are welcome to copy-edit
as a non-blocking comment, but this should not obstruct document
processing.
* The motivation for a particular feature of a protocol is not clear
enough. At the IESG review stage, protocols should not be blocked
because they provide capabilities beyond what seems necessary to
acquit their responsibilities.
* There are additional, purely informational references that might
be added to the document, such as pointers to academic papers or
new work. Although the cross-area perspective of the IESG invites
connections and comparison between disparate work in the IETF,
IESG review is not the appropriate time to append external sources
to the document.
* The document fails to cite a particular non-normative reference.
This is an appropriate non-blocking comment, but not a blocking
comment.
* Unfiltered external party reviews. While an AD is welcome to
consult with external parties, the AD is expected to evaluate, to
understand and to concur with issues raised by external parties.
Blindly cut-and-pasting an external party review into a DISCUSS is
inappropriate if the AD is unable to defend or substantiate the
issues raised in the review.
* New issues with unchanged text in documents previously reviewed by
the AD in question. Review is potentially an endless process; the
same eyes looking at the same document several times over the
course of years might uncover completely different issues every
time.
* "IOU" DISCUSS. Stating "I think there's something wrong here, and
I'll tell you what it is later" is not appropriate for a DISCUSS;
in that case, the AD should state the position DEFER (or, if the
document has already been DEFERed once, "No Objection").
Nottingham Expires 25 January 2024 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft DISCUSS Criteria July 2023
* When an extension or minor update is made to an existing protocol
that has unaddressed issues, it would not be appropriate to hold a
DISCUSS on that document demanding that the problem in the base
protocol specification be addressed; rather, the way to address
problems of this sort is to update the base protocol
specification. For example, a lack of consideration for pervasive
monitoring in an existing specification would not justify holding
a DISCUSS on the extension or minor update.
3.3. Saying No to A Document
In some cases an AD may believe that a document has fundamental flaws
that cannot be fixed. Normally in such cases the AD will write up a
description of these flaws and enter an "Abstain" position on the
ballot. Such a position does not support publication of the document
but also does not block the rest of the IESG from approving the
document. Normally, entering an Abstain position is a sufficient
mechanism for an AD to voice his or her objections.
However, there may be cases where an AD believes that the mechanisms
described in a document may cause significant damage to the Internet
and/or that the mechanisms described in a document are sufficiently
incompatible with the Internet architecture that a document must not
be published, despite the fact that the document is within scope for
the WG and represents WG consensus. This situation should be
extremely rare, and an AD should not take this position lightly, but
this does represent an important cross-area "back-stop" function of
the IESG.
In this situation, the AD will enter a "DISCUSS" position on the
ballot and explain his or her position as clearly as possible in the
tracker. The AD should also be willing to explain his or her
position to the other ADs and to the WG.
It is possible in such a situation that the WG will understand the
AD's objections and choose to withdraw the document, perhaps to
consider alternatives, and the situation will be resolved.
Another possibility is that the WG will disagree with the AD, and
will continue to request publication of the document. In those cases
the responsible AD should work with both the WG and the AD holding
the DISCUSS to see of a mutually agreeable path can be found.
Nottingham Expires 25 January 2024 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft DISCUSS Criteria July 2023
4. DISCUSS Resolution
The traditional method of DISCUSS resolution is the initiation of a
discussion about the issues in question. This discussion may include
only the IESG, particularly if the DISCUSS is resolved quickly during
or following the IESG agenda when the document is presented. Usually
the discussion extends to document editors and working group chairs,
and entire working groups, as necessary. Increasingly, one of the
working group chairs may coordinate the resolution of the DISCUSS
(see [RFC4858]).
As the conclusion of this discussion, revisions to the document may
or may not be required. If revisions are required, it is customary
for the Area Director to clear their DISCUSS only when the revision
containing the necessary emendations has been published in the
Internet-Drafts repository.
While in many cases, DISCUSSes are resolved expeditiously, there are
common cases where a DISCUSS can take weeks or months to resolve,
given that revisions are frequently required, and such revisions need
to be checked by the AD that issued the DISCUSS. Accordingly,
DISCUSSes should be used sparingly.
If a DISCUSS cannot be resolved by the working group, and the AD
continues to hold his or her DISCUSS, the IESG has an alternative
balloting procedure that can be used to override a single discuss
position. In the alternative procedure, all ADs are required to
enter a "yes" or "no" position on the document. A document will be
published if two-thirds of the IESG state a position of "yes", and no
more than two ADs state a "no" position. Two-thirds of the IESG is
formally defined as two-thirds of the sitting ADs (current 9), except
for those who are recused from voting on the document in question,
rounded up to the next whole number. If three or more ADs hold a
"no" position on a document using the alternative balloting
procedure, or if a document fails to gather the required number of
"yes" positions, the document will be returned to the WG with a "no"
answer, which is one of the options described in RFC 2026.
When an AD is replaced for any reason, the successor should promptly
evaluate DISCUSS ballots left by his or her predecessor, and either
re-assert them, if they still meet the criteria of Section 3.1, or
register "No Objection" if they do not. The successor AD is
responsible for handling such DISCUSS ballots just as if they were
his or her own.
The criteria provided in this document are intended to help the IESG
to restrict the usage of a DISCUSS to cases where it is necessary.
Nottingham Expires 25 January 2024 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft DISCUSS Criteria July 2023
5. IANA Considerations
This document contains no considerations for the IANA.
6. Security Considerations
This is a procedural document without security implications.
However, the ability of the IESG to review the security properties of
the submitted protocol specifications, point out and help resolve
security flaws in them is vital for Internet security.
7. Informative References
[RFC1958] Carpenter, B., Ed., "Architectural Principles of the
Internet", RFC 1958, DOI 10.17487/RFC1958, June 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1958>.
[RFC3424] Daigle, L., Ed. and IAB, "IAB Considerations for
UNilateral Self-Address Fixing (UNSAF) Across Network
Address Translation", RFC 3424, DOI 10.17487/RFC3424,
November 2002, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3424>.
[RFC4858] Levkowetz, H., Meyer, D., Eggert, L., and A. Mankin,
"Document Shepherding from Working Group Last Call to
Publication", RFC 4858, DOI 10.17487/RFC4858, May 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4858>.
Author's Address
Mark Nottingham
Prahran
Australia
Email: mnot@mnot.net
URI: https://www.mnot.net/
Nottingham Expires 25 January 2024 [Page 9]
