Subject: [iola-wgcharter-tool] A question about the states in RFC 6292

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:50:06 +0200

Hi,

While implementing the WG Charter tool, we discovered a potential problem
with the state description in RFC 6292,
  http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6292

The RFC describes one set of review states for a WG during initial
chartering, and another set of review states during re-chartering:

Initial:
   o  Informal IESG review
   o  Internal review
   o  External review
   o  IESG review
   o  WG exists
   o  Not currently under review

Rechartering:
   o  WG exists; Informal IESG recharter review
   o  WG exists; Internal recharter review
   o  WG exists; External recharter review

Now, the objects which exists in the database which are relevant for
the chartering process are two:  A *WG Object* (which before the RFC 6292
extensions can be in one of two states: 'Active' and 'Concluded'), and a
*Document Object*, the Charter, which potentially can get any set of
appropriate states we care to assign it.

There is no 'WG Review' object to hold a 'review state', and there seems
to be a mixture in what the review states listed above applies to - WG,
charter, or a review process.

Our suggestion, and the way we have implemented this in the code currently,
is to split the states up as described below.  From these states, all of
the 'review states' above can be synthesized if desired, although we would
propose that it's more straightforward to display the WG state and the
Charter document state directly:

  * The WG object keeps its current states, and gets a new one:
	o Proposed
	o Active
	o Concluded

  * The Charter Document Object gets the following states:
	o Informal IESG Review
	o  Informal IESG review
	o  Internal review
	o  External review
	o  IESG review
	o  Not currently under review
	o Approved

Thoughts?

Best regards,

	Henrik

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:25:34 -0400

Henrik:

I see a  problem with your proposal as I understand it.

When there is a charter in place, a recharter is a discussion about replacing that charter.  The potential recharter can take many revisions, and while this is happening, the original charter remain the 'active' one.  When the recharter is approved, it become the 'active' one.  So, during the recharter there are two documents in play.

Russ

On Aug 30, 2011, at 11:50 AM, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:

> _______________________________________________
> iola-wgcharter-tool mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/iola-wgcharter-tool

---

From: Martin Qvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:23:01 +0200

Hi

The behaviour you describe is already handled (with Henriks proposed
states) in the implementation. The active charter is showed under
/wg/wgacronym (it shows the charter with the highest revision XX), and
the newly proposed charter texts are shown under /wgrecord/wgacronym
(the charters with revision XX-00, XX-01, etc.). When the proposed new
charter is approved it gets revision XX+1 and is then shown in both
/wg/wgacronym and /wgrecord/wgacronym.

I hope this is clear enough.

Best,
Martin

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:42:02 +0200

Hi Russ,

On 2011-08-31 00:25 Russ Housley said:
> When there is a charter in place, a recharter is a discussion about
> replacing that charter. The potential recharter can take many
> revisions, and while this is happening, the original charter remain
> the 'active' one. When the recharter is approved, it become the
> 'active' one. So, during the recharter there are two documents in
> play.

You're right.  The simplest way to handle this would be to simply let
the charters be multiple documents, named for instance

  charter-foowg-00  with revs 00, 01, 02 etc (charter-foowg-00-00.txt etc.)
  charter-foowg-01  with revs 00, 01, 02 etc (charter-foowg-01-00.txt etc.)

and publish the final, approved version as charter-foowg-00.txt, etc. if
we want to keep exactly to the numbering scheme in the RFC.  Then the
charters would have different independent states.

I guess we should then also introduce a state 'Superseded' or 'Obsoleted'
or 'Historic' for old charters once new ones has been put in place.  There
could also be a replaces/replaced-by relationship linking the documents.

Do you think that would work?

Best regards,

	Henrik

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:47:49 +0200

Hi Martin,

> /wg/wgacronym and /wgrecord/wgacronym.

But as long as those are just different revisions of the same document,
we won't be able to have different states for them, right?  I mean, then
someone who went to look at the current charter document would be able
to extract a state of for instance 'Informal IESG Review' instead of
'Approved' because a later revision of the document would exist, with
that state?

Best regards,

	Henrik

---

From: Martin Qvist <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:55:13 +0200

Hi

Ah, now I understand. No, that wouldn't be possible as it is setup right 
now. It would be better to make separate charter Document objects for 
each (re)chartering as you proposed in the other mail.

It wouldn't complicate things too much. There would be some more merge 
of the individual charter Document histories in the History log on the 
WG record, but that shouldn't take too long to fix.

Best,
Martin

---

From: Russ Housley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:03:01 -0400

I see that I misunderstood ion my first reading.  This approach works for me, as long as the state on the /wg/wgacronym version is Approved and accessible until it is replaced by the approved recharter.

I alway envisioned the charters and proposed charters being in the same directory to make it easy to perform diff between the various versions.  The most common diffs are:

   - compare most recent proposed recharter to the previous proposal

   - compare most recent proposed recharter to the currently approved charter

Russ

On Aug 31, 2011, at 4:20 AM, Martin Qvist wrote:

> Hi
> 
> The behaviour you describe is already handled (with Henriks proposed states) in the implementation. The active charter is showed under /wg/wgacronym (it shows the charter with the highest revision XX), and the newly proposed charter texts are shown under /wgrecord/wgacronym (the charters with revision XX-00, XX-01, etc.). When the proposed new charter is approved it gets revision XX+1 and is then shown in both /wg/wgacronym and /wgrecord/wgacronym.
>