Individual Submission S. Moonesamy Internet-Draft December 26, 2011 Intended status: Historic Expires: June 28, 2012 Working Group Consensus draft-moonesamy-wg-consensus-00 Abstract This memo discusses about Working Group rough consensus within the IETF. 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 http://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 June 28, 2012. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2011 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 (http://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 Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Moonesamy Expires June 28, 2012 [Page 1] Internet-Draft WG Consensus December 2011 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Birds of a feather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Working Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3.1. Rough consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.2. Dissenting views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.3. Cross-area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.4. Summarizing the discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3.5. Conflict of interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. Last Call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Moonesamy Expires June 28, 2012 [Page 2] Internet-Draft WG Consensus December 2011 1. Introduction The IETF uses a consensus decision-making process to create Internet Standards and to standardize practices and the results of the deliberations of the IETF community. The starting point is a proposal submitted as an Internet-Draft or a Birds of a Feather (BoF). The proposal undergoes a period of development, generally within a working group, and several iterations of review before a final review by the IETF community. The decision-making process used in a working group is based on rough consensus. Issues are sometimes raised during an IETF Last Call. This memo discusses about rough consensus and whether issues are raised because a working group has not given thorough consideration to the technical alternatives. 2. Birds of a feather A Birds of a Feather (BoF) is a session at an IETF meeting which permits "market research" and technical "brainstorming". It can be used to determine whether there is enough interest and focus in a subject to warrant the formation of a working group. There are discussions on a mailing list before the BoF to explore the issues and for the participants to share their views about a common approach. Participants are not always enthusiastic to review working group drafts; they demonstrate interest to work during this initial stage or when a working group is being closed. Mailing list discussions before the formation of a working group generally turn into debates about technical decisions. Although such discussions could be seen as an exploration of the issues, there is a loss of focus as participants spend time on minute details. It can be easier to reach rough consensus if participants were to explain what they want and suggest an approach which is aligned with their interests while taking into account the interests of the group. 3. Working Group A working group has a charter which describes the problem(s) to be solved, the deliverables to be produced and milestones for the deliverables. Moonesamy Expires June 28, 2012 [Page 3] Internet-Draft WG Consensus December 2011 3.1. Rough consensus Consensus does not require complete agreement; one way to describe it is that everyone is willing to accept a decision. To create a climate of consensus, it is up to the working group to give thorough consideration to technical alternatives and to ensure that issues have been given due consideration. Although only rough consensus is required, issues which are hand-waived by a working group can surface again during the IETF Last Call jeopardizing the efforts of the working group. 3.2. Dissenting views Dissenting views can go unheard. Some participants overcome that by re-posting their arguments and end up being labelled as vocal participants. Controversies are fueled by inflamatory statements, personal attacks or subtle condescending comments. 3.3. Cross-area A working group has a narrow view of a problem. It is difficult to attract expertise from other areas as people are busy or they do not have a stake in the solution to bother commenting on it. Even when there are people with such expertise, they might be ignored when they provide advice if it will slow down the work or it does not fit within the solution that the working group is willing to hear. 3.4. Summarizing the discussion It is not always obvious for a participant following a discussion to understand the diverse viewpoints, e.g. the discussion generates a high volume of messages covering minute technical details or issues which seem unrelated to the subject of contention. Instead of summarizing the discussion, it is assumed that the the participants understood each other. 3.5. Conflict of interest A decision-making process leads to conflict if it is not viewed as fair and open. Such conflicts can arise through misunderstandings or, sometimes, self-interest. Conflict of interest could be construed as when the person taking the decision shares the primary affiliation, e.g. they work for the same company, as the person(s) affected by the decision. The affiliation of a person in a working group is not always obvious nowadays as the person might be using a email address from a vanity Moonesamy Expires June 28, 2012 [Page 4] Internet-Draft WG Consensus December 2011 domain or a free account instead of one from the company he/she works for. Working Group editors generally mention the company they work for in drafts. It is awkward for a participant to ask a Working Group Chair to disclose the information. A person sometimes has secondary affiliations, e.g. to an interest group or organization which derives a benefit from the work being carried out. Such affiliations are rarely disclosed. There is an assumption that the disclosure of primary affiliation is enough to determine the interests of a person. It has been said that participation in the IETF is on individual basis. If the stakes are high enough, a person might align himself/ herself on a position influenced by external parties. 4. Last Call An IETF Last Call is a way to determine the consensus of the IETF community. Issues which are not considered as adequately addressed are raised during a Last Call and can be the cause of heated discussions. 5. Security Considerations By failing to identify the issues, a working group might overlook security concerns. A working group relies on its participants to perform "due diligence". 6. IANA Considerations This document contains no IANA actions. Author's Address S. Moonesamy 76, Ylang Ylang Avenue Quatre Bornes Mauritius Email: sm+ietf@elandsys.com Moonesamy Expires June 28, 2012 [Page 5]