[AFS3-std] Re: Updated rxgk draft

[Jeffrey Hutzelman]

On Tue, 2012-01-10 at 11:36 -0500, Andrew Deason wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:58:07 +0000
> Simon Wilkinson <simon@sxw.org.uk> wrote:
> 
> > I would like to ask the chairs to start a Last Call for this document.
> 
> I'm apparently very confused as to how discussion with drafts work. I
> thought the convention was to issue another call for comments after
> about a week after a new draft, and ask for a last call for comments
> after that. But asking for a last call on the same day as a new draft is
> the norm?

During development of a document, there are no rules about when to
submit updated draft versions, when or how strongly to ask for comments,
etc.  While some people have used these phrases in message subjects,
formally there is no such thing as a "First Call", "Second Call", etc,
and no particular process for development of a document.  There is only
discussion, authors and others asking people to review and comment, and
occasional updates when an author feels appropriate.

It may make sense to ask for comments after publishing a new draft with
significant changes from the previous version.  However, there's no
requirement that publication of an I-D trigger some sort of comment
period.  Think of I-D publication as taking a snapshot of the author's
copy of the document, tagging it so that version can easily be referred
to, and making it easily accessible.  Nothing more.


The formal last call process is intended to be a mechanism for allowing
the chairs to determine whether a consensus exists.  It normally should
not be started until the author(s) and chair(s) reasonably believe that
such a consensus does in fact exist.  Though in practice, sometimes in
the IETF we've been known to start a last call on a document just to
force people to review it.

I hope that clears some things up.

-- Jeff