On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 12:47 PM Ted Lemon <mel...@fugue.com> wrote:
> Although it is, as ekr has pointed out, not normative, nevertheless RFC > 7282 provides a solid process for coming to rough consensus. This method > does not involve voting, and I think operates in the way that DJB proposes. > I certainly would not consider vote counting to be a valid way to determine > consensus, because it doesn't inform the working group in any way—it's > really just a count of how many bodies a particular proponent was able to > throw at the problem. > > As for what the minimum number of people involved should be, that's also > really hard to state objectively because some working groups get vastly > more participation than others: what works for one will not work for > another. > > I'm not suggesting that we make RFC 7282 normative; what I am suggesting > is that it's a good basis for reasoning about this problem, and we do > really already know how to solve this problem. Unfortunately it does > require that WG leadership and IETF leadership actually put the effort in > to accurately judge the consensus. > How the chair "accurately judge the consensus." and to avoid the problem I mentioned in the previous email : "So consensus calls can be made based on inconsistent "policies" or "unknown rules/policies" and many people might feel that they are treated unfairly in many consensus calls and they could have a question in their head: why did the chairs do that to me ?" ? If we don't think the problem above is a problem, then we don't have to change anything. But if we think that problem is a problem, then I don't see any better way to take care of it other than defining a minimum percentage of votes to have the consensus. Regards, Quynh. > If there really is no better reason to choose solution A as opposed to > solution B as the number of votes, then the decision is effectively > arbitrary anyway, and a coin flip would also work (and this has been done > in the past in such situations). > > > On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 6:39 PM Quynh Dang <quyn...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> >> On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 11:40 AM D. J. Bernstein <d...@cr.yp.to> wrote: >> >>> Quynh Dang writes: >>> > D. J. Bernstein <d...@cr.yp.to> wrote: >>> > > Quynh Dang writes: >>> > > > Any result will hurt one group (can't be both groups have what they >>> > > > want). >>> > > BCP 54: "IETF participants use their best engineering judgment to >>> find >>> > > the best solution for the whole Internet, not just the best solution >>> for >>> > > any particular network, technology, vendor, or user." >>> > The key point in that policy is "the best solution for the whole >>> Internet". >>> > So, in my example, one group thinks A is the one and the other group >>> thinks >>> > B is the one. >>> >>> That wouldn't be a case of some group not getting what it wants. It >>> would be everyone wanting what's best for the Internet, but not enough >>> analysis having been carried out yet to know what that is. The usual way >>> out of such cases is via a closer look at the engineering. >>> >>> The "not just" part of the above BCP 54 quote is recognizing that >>> vendors have an incentive to push for what's best for those vendors. >>> That's a much more obvious reason for conflicts---and if one starts by >>> thinking of IETF as a way to manage conflicts of vendor interests then >>> votes might seem to be a natural way to make decisions. But the policy >>> is saying that IETF's goal is instead to do what's best from an >>> engineering perspective for the Internet as a whole. >>> >> >> As discussed previously, "what's best from an engineering perspective", >> is there the decision maker such as a judge to say A is the right one, not >> B or give a verdict such as this patent covers this, but not that ? That >> is why the IETF requires "rough" consensus. >> >> >>> Votes don't help the engineering process; they disrupt it. Voting is not >>> how IETF is supposed to work in the first place. As Dave Clark famously >>> said in https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/24.pdf: "We reject: kings, >>> presidents and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code." >> >> >> I have not advocated against "rough consensus". >> >> The problem is that "rough consensus" is so broadly or vaguely defined. >> So consensus calls can be made based on inconsistent "policies" or "unknown >> rules/policies" and many people might feel that they are treated unfairly >> in many consensus calls and they could have a question in their head: why >> did the chairs do that to me ? So the problem makes the job of the chairs >> so hard and stressful. >> >> Defining a minimum percentage of votes to have the consensus would take >> care of the problem and the chairs at the IETF would love that. >> >> Regards, >> Quynh. >> >> >>> >>> ---D. J. Bernstein >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> TLS mailing list -- tls@ietf.org >>> To unsubscribe send an email to tls-le...@ietf.org >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> TLS mailing list -- tls@ietf.org >> To unsubscribe send an email to tls-le...@ietf.org >> >
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