[OpenAFS] Consensus Call - AFS3-Standardization Charter -- nomination/Kim

[Kim Kimball]

Hi Jeffrey,

Jeff Altman asked me to respond to your email about nomination for the 
standardization work.

Can't find that email, but I do accept the nomination, which I believe 
is what Jeff A was after.

Thanks.

Kim


On 7/7/10 5:08 PM, Jeffrey Hutzelman wrote:
> IMPORTANT:
> This has gotten fairly lengthy, but please read through to the end.  
> This message contains important information on the future of AFS 
> protocol standardization work, and a specific request for input from 
> the AFS community (that is, YOUR input) within the next 2 weeks.
>
> PLEASE send followups to afs3-standardization at openafs.org
>
>
> Back in January of 2006, the afs3-standardization at openafs.org mailing 
> list was created in order to provide a forum for discussion of the AFS 
> protocols and particularly to coordinate extensions and changes to 
> those protocols among the various implementations.  The first 
> discussions in that vein started the following month, with Jeffrey 
> Altman's proposal to define new GetCapabilities RPC's for each of the 
> various RPC services.  Since then, there have been discussions on a 
> wide variety of proposed extensions, some small and some much larger 
> in scope.  Overall, I consider the mailing list to have been and 
> continue to be a success.
>
> Two years ago, at the AFS & Kerberos Best Practices Workshop at NJIT 
> in Newark, NJ, there was some discussion about the prospect of 
> establishing a more formal charter and process for the standardization 
> group, and especially of insuring its independence from any one 
> implementation.  After the workshop, Simon Wilkinson took a stab at 
> writing such a charter, and sent his proposal to the 
> afs3-standardization mailing list (see Simon's message to that list, 
> dated 15-Jul-2008).  This prompted quite a lot of discussion and two 
> additional drafts over following couple of months. After the third 
> draft, there was exactly one additional comment, and there has been no 
> further discussion since.
>
> It is my personal belief that there was general agreement within the 
> community to move forward with Simon's draft as an initial charter for 
> the standardization group.  However, there has been little progress in 
> the last 21 months.  Much of this is my fault -- I kept saying I was 
> going to do something and then not getting around to it.  However, 
> while the document hasn't been discussed much in the interim, my 
> conversations during that time with various individuals, in person and 
> online, lead me to believe that there is _still_ general agreement to 
> proceed with Simon's draft.
>
>
>
> So, here's what I'm going to do about it...
>
> Simon's document calls for a bootstrapping process in which a 
> registrar group is form of the then-current registrar (myself) plus 
> one representative from each current implementation (IBM, OpenAFS, 
> kAFS, Arla) that cares to provide one.  The registrars would then 
> serve as vote-takers in an initial election of two chairs as described 
> in section 2.2.2 of the draft.
>
> The initial bootstrapping of the registrars has already mostly taken 
> place. Thomas Kula has agreed to serve as a registrar representing 
> OpenAFS, and has held that position officially since the 2009 
> workshop.  Around that time, I asked IBM, kAFS, and Arla to nominate 
> registrars, but I have yet to receive a response that resulted in an 
> actual volunteer.  If any of those organizations wants to nominate 
> someone, please contact me.  Otherwise, Thomas and I have already 
> agreed that we will nonetheless increase the size of the registrar 
> group to at least three and seek out a volunteer to fill the vacant 
> position.  It is my hope that we can accomplish that by the end of the 
> month.
>
> The next step would seem to be the bootstrapping of the chairs.  
> However, we have a recursive-dependency problem here -- before we can 
> use the election process defined in Simon's document with any 
> confidence, we must be sure we have consensus among the community to 
> use that document. However, lacking a chair, there is no formal means 
> of determining consensus.
> Chicken, meet Egg.
>
> Simon's document itself proposes part of the solution to this problem, 
> in the form of the last paragraph of section 3, which calls on the 
> newly-formed group to develop, adopt, and publish its own charter.  To 
> complete the solution, the registrars note that the first step 
> (indeed, the first several steps) in electing new chairs rest on our 
> hands.  Thus, we are taking the following actions:
>
>
> (1) I have asked Simon to submit the latest version of his proposed 
> charter
>    in the form of an Internet-Draft.  That draft is now available at
> <http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-wilkinson-afs3-standardisation-00>
>
> (2) On behalf of the registrars, I am issuing this consensus call.  This
>    is an attempt to elicit comments and to discover whether there is
>    rough consensus in the AFS community to begin formalizing the protocol
>    standards process as described in the draft named above.  I am asking
>    everyone to review the proposed charter and send any comments to the
>    mailing list, afs3-standardization at openafs.org, within the next 2
>    weeks.
>
> (3) On or shortly after Wednesday, July 21, 2010, the registrars will
>    examine the comments received and make a determination as to whether
>    we believe such a consensus exists.  Depending on the state affairs,
>    we may choose to wait a while longer for discussion to die down before
>    making a determination.  In other words, this is not a hard deadline;
>    it is only the earliest date on which we will make any decision.
>
> If at this point the registrars believe that there is not a rough 
> consensus to adopt Simon's draft charter and that no such consensus is 
> forthcoming, we will simply stop.  Things will continue as they are 
> today, with no formal process, unless or until someone tries again.
>
> However, if the registrars believe that a rough consensus _does_ 
> exist, we will more or less immediately begin the election process as 
> described in section 2.2.2, with the full set of registrars (at least 
> Thomas and myself, and preferably at least one other) serving as 
> vote-takers.  Our goal will be to follow the timeline set out in that 
> document.  However, this is incumbent on the community reaching a 
> consensus in time to start the election process no later than early 
> August.  If a consensus emerges, but more slowly, then we will adjust 
> the timeline accordingly.
>
>
> Here's the important bit again:
>
> Please take the time to review 
> draft-wilkinson-afs3-standardization-00.txt.
> Send your questions and comments to <afs3-standardization at openafs.org>.
> Please comment even if it's just to say "I support this" or "I oppose 
> this".
> Please send your comments in by Wednesday, July 21, 2010.
>
>
> -- Jeffrey T. Hutzelman (N3NHS) <jhutz+ at cmu.edu>
>   for the AFS Assigned Numbers Registrars
>
>
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