Subject: RE: [Isms] Rough Consensus Declaration: ISMS Architecture is EK

From: "Fleischman, Eric" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 May 2005 13:03:38 -0700

I suggest that we accept the result and move on. 

I recommend this because they are still fighting over my home state's
(Washington State) most recent governor election in the courts, since it
seems like a great many criminals and dead people voted in our last
election. The election itself had three official re-counts before the
courts stepped in. 

I fear that we don't accept this count, what will be the basis to
finally end to the resulting re-counts? Let's not go there...

_______________________________________________
Isms mailing list
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https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/isms

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From: Eliot Lear <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 22:09:52 +0200

Eric,

> election.

Aside from the fact that it violates the spirit of our own rules,
our protocol choice may well outlast your governor and successors. 
Beyond this, see my other message.

Eliot

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From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 16:53:53 -0400

>>>>> "Eliot" == Eliot Lear <[email-masked]> writes:

    Eliot> Eric,

    >> I suggest that we accept the result and move on. I recommend
    >> this because they are still fighting over my home state's
    >> (Washington State) most recent governor election in the courts,
    >> since it seems like a great many criminals and dead people
    >> voted in our last election.

    Eliot> Aside from the fact that it violates the spirit of our own
    Eliot> rules, our protocol choice may well outlast your governor
    Eliot> and successors. Beyond this, see my other message.

I'd like to speak to a point of process.  Sometimes it is far more
important to make a decision (no matter what it is) than to make a
particular decision.  This can be particularly true when several
options are very close.  The working group may have several acceptable
options--options for which there is no rough consensus that choosing
the option would be a bad idea.  The working group may have a strong
consensus that a decision of some kind is important.

In such a case it is reasonable for the consensus to make a particular
decision to be very rough--possibly even coinflip rough.  The strong
consensus to make some decision reduces the strength of the consensus
required for any particular acceptable option.  (As a side note, I've
actually been in a working group where a coin flip was used to make a
consensus call.  A decision was required and no one in the room or on
the list cared what the outcome was.)

A similar situation is also possible.  There are several close
options.  There may not be agreement that a decision is required or
there may not be sufficient consensus that the options are in fact
acceptable.  In this instance the requirements for consensus for some
specific decision are stronger than the previous case.

So, even from a spirit of process standpoint a very rough consensus
may be OK in some situations and quite problematic in others.  It all
depends on what the working group needs and on the consensus of the
working group about the tradeoff between having a decision vs having
the right decision.

It was my intent when writing this message to be completely neutral on
the question of which situation we're in now.  Currently that is the
chairs' call not mine.

--Sam

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From: "David B Harrington" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 May 2005 18:41:13 -0400

I am firmly in the camp that some decision must be made. It appears
that each of the proposals and architectures have good and bad points,
so any of the solutions will require work to reach compromises. 

Not making a decision means not starting the work, which leaves us
with USM only, and operarors have ineicated that is an unacceptable
solution.

David Harrington
[email-masked]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] 
> [mailto:[email-masked]] On Behalf Of Sam Hartman
> Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 4:54 PM
> To: Eliot Lear
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [Isms] Rough Consensus Declaration: ISMS 
> Architecture is EK
>

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From: "Randy Presuhn" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 May 2005 17:15:34 -0700

Hi -

> From: "David B Harrington" <[email-masked]>
> To: "'Sam Hartman'" <[email-masked]>; "'Eliot Lear'" <[email-masked]>
> Cc: <[email-masked]>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 3:41 PM
> Subject: RE: [Isms] Rough Consensus Declaration: ISMS Architecture is EK
>

> so any of the solutions will require work to reach compromises.
...

I agree.  The evaluation process brought me to the same conclusion, and the
subsequent discussion on this mailing list has not led me to change my mind.
The co-chairs have chosen a direction based on the expressed preferences
of the WG, so let's stop second-guessing and see how we can make it work.

Randy