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I am sending the attached emails for your
information. It is important for us to realize the level of completeness
that we will need in our standard before it is ready to progress. Geoff's
comments are particularly instructive here. I recommend that you read the
attached set of notes to get a better appreciation for the level of completeness
that we need to be aiming for prior to sending the document out to Working Group
ballot.
Best regards,
Robert D. Love President, Resilient Packet Ring Alliance President,
LAN Connect Consultants 7105 Leveret Circle Raleigh,
NC 27615 Phone: 919 848-6773 Mobile: 919
810-7816 email: rdlove@xxxxxxxx
Fax: 208 978-1187 ----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 8:32 PM
Subject: RE: [802SEC] +++ SEC EMAIL BALLOT +++ Motion: 802.16a to
Sponsor Ballot
Folks-
I have not yet reviewed the package yet to generate
my vote but I am troubled by what is going on. My detailed comments are mixed in
below.
Geoff
At 05:22 PM 4/9/02 -0600, Roger B. Marks
wrote:
I vote Approve on this motion.
While I
understand Pat's concerns, I would also like to address her
comments.
I would note here that Pat has served on REVCOM, she
knows of what she speaks.
*TBDs: Yes, there are a few TBDs in the document.
This is less than ideal. However, there is nothing in the 802 or IEEE-SA rules
on this issue. Obviously, we are not going to send a document to RevCom with
TBDs. When the Working Group turns a document over to a Sponsor Ballot group,
it willingly gives up some of its control to another group. The Working Group
has judged that the Sponsor Ballot Group is capable of resolving these minor
TBDs and has trusted them to do so. I believe they have that
right.
You say that "Obviously, we are not going to send a
document to RevCom with TBDs".
I say that you shouldn't go to Sponsor Ballot
with a document that you aren't willing to stand behind being published as a
Standard. There are several reasons for this:
1) Pride. A quality 802
Working Group shouldn't present unfinished work to the outside world (and that
is what Sponsor Ballot is) as their product. It looks shoddy.
2)
Discipline. It is my belief that a document shouldn't even go to Working Group
Ballot with TBDs
- From 802.3 Operating Rules
- 2.8.2 Draft Standard Balloting Requirements
- Before a draft is submitted to WG letter ballot it shall in addition have
met the following requirements:
- a) It must be complete with no open technical issues.
- b) It must be made available for pre-view by the membership by the
Monday prior to the plenary week. If any changes are made to the draft after
the draft was made available for pre-view the textual changes shall be
presented for review during the closing plenary immediately prior to the
vote for approval to go to WG ballot.
- c) It must be formatted according to the IEEE style selected by the WG
Chair. This style will be selected to minimize the editorial work required
for publication of the draft.
- The way we do quality standards is to get the work done in an early,
orderly fashion. The balloting process should not be used as a period in which
to get more work done. The process should be event driven, not schedule
driven. The actual process steps don't take very long when the draft is clean
and the process is managed. The balloting process will introduce its own set
of surprises. You should have your own business taken care of before you take
balloting on.
3) Risk. You might get approved and published in the
form presented. If you don't get a comment on something then you have no
business changing it. In particular the following text from the IEEE-SA
Operations Manual should be well known to the Working Group AND be considered to
be SCARY:
- From 5.4.3.2
- However, once 75% approval has been achieved, the IEEE has an obligation
to the majority to review and publish the standard quickly. Therefore, once
75% approval has
- been achieved, the IEEE requirements for consensus have been met. Efforts
to resolve negative votes may continue for a brief period; however, should
such resolution not be possible in a timely manner, the Sponsor should forward
the submittal to RevCom.
*Dismissive rebuttals: Out
of the 12 Disapprove comments (and out of the 1178 comments resolved in the
Working Group Letter Ballot), I can see two for which a stronger rebuttal might
be called for. I wish we had none. However, all of these Disapprove comments
were recirculated (all but two were recirculated twice). Once again, the analogy
to a RevCom application is less than exact. 802.16 is not asking the SEC to
approve a standard; it is asking the SEC to initiate a ballot.
It is precisely the job of the SEC to audit the
process for Working Group Ballot in much the same way that REVCOM audits the
process for Sponsor Ballot. To that end, an 802 package much to the
embarrassment of several folks including me was bounced at REVCOM for
inappropriate responses. I reject Roger's position on this.
In the last Working Group recirc, we had 8 new
Approves and no new Disapproves. We also had no comments. The Working Group
has clearly spoken, by a vote of 99-5. I can understand the role of
perfectionism in approving a standard. However, it shouldn't apply to holding
a ballot.
Roger
P.S. Finally, should the SEC members care to
consider the cost/benefit relationship of this decision, I'd like to mention
that, because of our scheduling situation,
As I said above, I
believe that our process should be event driven, not schedule driven. Yielding
completeness to a schedule that was developed before the problem was well known
produces poor work. While it is certainly true that a schedule is an extremely
effect tool to move a group forward and keep their eye on the goal, I do not
believe that you can schedule consensus.
the failure of this SEC motion would have serious
scheduling implications. Even if could open the Sponsor Ballot before our May
interim meeting, we wouldn't have it closed in time to resolve comments. The
resulting delay would be at least two months; possibly four.
I've read through the disapprove comments and I
have two concerns:
1) TBD's - normally we forward to sponsor ballot a
document should be
complete which means that it shouldn't have any TBD's.
Starting sponsor
ballot has been equated to lighting a solid fuel booster
rocket. It can be
hard to abort the process once one has gotten to that
point. It is the final
review phase. If the TBDs are in an informative
part of the standard such
that even if they are never filled in it would
be okay to publish then maybe
it is acceptable to go to sponsor ballot
with them in place. If the TBDs are
normative then they need to be filled
in before starting sponsor ballot
(which implies another Working Group
recirculation).
2) Dismissive unresponsive responses to disapprove
comments. A number of the
comment responses don't appear to seriously
respond to the comment. To the
uninitiated reader they read like
brushoffs. Look, for example, at the
comments concerned about the number
of alternative physical layers. A
response to a comment such as this
should include brief justification of why
the alternatives have been
included. Similarly the responses to requests
that material be added to
guide one in selecting between the PHY
alternatives. Note that the under
Distinct Identity of the Five Criteria on
requirement is: "Easy for the
document reader to select the relevant
specification." so it is a
reasonable request that should have gotten a more
serious
response.
If sponsor ballot comments end up going to RevCom with
similar responses
then there is a good chance that the submission won't
get approved. Comment
responses to unresolved disapprove comments should
be written such that they
justify the working group response to an
outsider. That is who will be
reviewing them to audit that the working
group did its job.
Regards,
Pat
-----Original
Message-----
From: Paul Nikolich [mailto:Paul.nikolich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday,
April 05, 2002 6:06 AM
To: 'IEEE802'
Subject: [802SEC] +++ SEC EMAIL
BALLOT +++ Motion: 802.16a to Sponsor
Ballot
Dear
SEC,
This is an SEC email ballot on making a determination on the
below SEC
motion to forward IEEEE P802.16a/d2 to LMSC Sponsor Ballot,
moved by Roger
Marks, seconded by Bob Heile.
The email ballot
opens on Friday April 5 9AM EST and closes Friday April 12
noon
EDT.
Please direct your responses to the SEC
reflector.
Regards,
--Paul
-----Original
Message-----
From: Roger B. Marks [mailto:marks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, April
04, 2002 7:47 PM
To: p.nikolich@xxxxxxxx
Cc: stds-802-sec@xxxxxxxx;
stds-802-16@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Motion: 802.16a to Sponsor
Ballot
Paul,
I would like to make the following IEEE 802
LMSC Motion:
"To forward IEEE P802.16a/D3 to LMSC Sponsor
Ballot"
Motion
by: Roger
Marks
Seconded
by: Robert Heile
Full backup material, including details of all 12
Disapprove
comments:
<http://ieee802.org/16/docs/02/80216-02_21.pdf>
SUMMARY:
*IEEE
802.16 Letter Ballot #4 (including Recirc #4a and Confirm #4b)
"To
forward IEEE P802.16a for IEEE Sponsor Ballot"
Dates: 2001-11-30 to
2002-04-04
Final results:
Approve
99
(95%)
Disapprove
5
Abstain
18
Return Ratio 122/178 =
69%
Disapprove Comments 12
Final voting report: http://ieee802.org/16/tga/ballot04/report4b.html
Disapprove
comments: http://ieee802.org/16/docs/02/80216-02_21.pdf
(all
were recirculated)
Results of final recirculation (Confirmation
Ballot
#4b):
New Disapproves
0
Comments 0
*IEEE
802.16 Authorizing Motion
802.16 Session #18 Closing Plenary (15 March
2002)
Motion: "To authorize a confirmation ballot of P802.16a/D3
and
forward it for LMSC Sponsor Ballot pending successful
confirmation
ballot."
Motion by: Brian Kiernan, for Task
Group a
Seconded by: (none needed)
Approve:
32
Disapprove: 1
Abstain:
2
Other documentation:
Confirmation Ballot #4b
announcement:
<http://ieee802.org/16/docs/02/80216-02_20.pdf>
final comment Resolution
database:
<http://ieee802.org/16/docs/02/80216-02_01r14.pdf>
[PDF
format]
<http://ieee802.org/16/docs/02/80216-02_01r14.zip>
[database format]
draft
(P802.16a/D3):
http://wirelessman.dyndns.org/users/tgaaccess/private/P80216a_D3.zip
(username and password upon request)
I would like to urge that the
ballot be concluded by noon ET on April
12 in order to accommodate our
tight schedule situation (namely, so
that we can get the ballot closed
before our interim meeting).
Please let me know if I can provide any
more
information.
Regards,
Roger
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