Subject: [core] 🔔: draft-ietf-core-coap has completed IETF last call

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:04:43 +0100

draft-ietf-core-coap has completed IETF last call yesterday.

The next step (after AD go-ahead) is the IESG decision process.

Most IESG members will now take a position on the draft (YES,
NO OBJECTION, DISCUSS, ABSTAIN), and many will supply COMMENTS (which
are usually taken quite seriously, hence in upper case).  DISCUSS
positions essentially stop the process.  Clearing them up, and
addressing COMMENTS, often leads to editorial or even technical
changes to the draft before it is accepted by the IESG.  If you want
to see this in action, have a look at the evolution of
draft-ietf-core-link-format-11 (which was IETF last-called) to -14
(which was the input to the RFC editor).  To wit:
http://tools.ietf.org/rfcdiff?url2=draft-ietf-core-link-format-14.txt&url1=draft-ietf-core-link-format-11.txt
You will see many editorial changes, but you also will see that
numerous fixes were applied to the formal descriptions, and even a
technical change ("uri" to "href").

The IESG decision process is meant to take place between the Document
Shepherd (Andrew McGregor in this case), the WG chairs, the document
authors, and the IESG; often orchestrated by the sponsoring AD (Barry
Leiba in this case).

In the past, the process has often been mostly intransparent to the
WG, unless one of the actors decided to make information available to
the WG.  With the datatracker, WG members can now gain some more
insight, but they have to actively look for it.

For this draft, Barry Leiba has decided to run an experiment:

    The discussion around the IESG decision process will be directly
    copied to the WG.

This has the invaluable advantage that the entire expertise of the WG
is available for evaluating the comments and changes that are being
pondered.  So the chairs and the authors welcome this experiment and
hope we can apply it to all future documents this WG completes.

It also has a potential downside.  The IESG decision process is
characterized by the heavy workload of the IESG members participating
in it.  Focusing the number of people directly interacting with them
in such a process helps with that workload.

    So I would ask the WG to prefer using the Document Shepherd
    (and the Sponsoring AD) as the main channels into the IESG.
    (Of course, if that doesn't work, you are always free to
    escalate. But it should be worth an escalation.)

Grüße, Carsten