A couple of comments. I'll snip out parts so it doesn't get too long.

At 07:17 AM 5/18/00 -0500, Tom-PT Taylor wrote:

Thanks for your quick read. Comments below. I am copying the SG 16 list so they can comment too. The original document Chip commented on is Osaka TD-20.

...snip...

...

Notification to ITU-T Study Group 16 shall be by ...

This seems incomplete. :-)

I would assume that notification to SG16 will be similar to that for Megaco (i.e., email to the SG16 chair or to the SG16 mail list).

Please keep in mind that SG16 has two email lists. An official one from itu.int that noone seems to use and an unofficial one hosted by intel.com that is used by everybody. [PTT] From a technical/legal point of view, SG16 has two choices: the responsible Rapporteur(s) or the Chair. Definitely not the list. Anyway, it's for them to say. >Notification to the IETF Megaco Working Group may be by E-mail to its Chair, >but is preferably by E-mail to the Working Group E-mail list. Copies of all >notifications to Megaco or from Megaco shall be sent to the ISOC Vice >President of Standards, in accordance with procedures agreed between ISOC >and the ITU-T.

What are these procedures? Please describe the procedures or provide a reference. [PTT] I think they are described fully in Recommendation A.5.

I believe A.5 only discusses how ITU can reference IETF RFCs. It doesn't define communication procedures that I know of. As long as notification to ISOC VP-Standards is in parallel with working group notification it shouldn't be too much of an impediment.

...

Modes Of Cooperation > >This agreement foresees three modes of

cooperation: "Joint Development", >"Formal Comment", and "Informal Comment". These are defined as follows.

...snip...

...

In "Formal Comment" mode, development of the standard is the task of

a >single party to this agreement (the "initiating party") up to the point of >formal progression of the standard. This point is reached in the ITU-T when >the document has been determined. It is reached in the IETF when Working >Group Last Call is announced. At that point, the document shall be >forwarded to the other organization(s) for comment. The initiating party >agrees to allow the other organization(s) sufficient time to complete a >formal process of comment [people may want this spelled out] before the >initiating party completes its own process of formal review, and agrees to >take the comments of the other organization(s) into account in determining >the final contents of the document concerned. ***The parties to this >agreement agree that subsequent to determination or commencement of Working >Group Last Call respectively, the only changes permitted in the document >will be to provide clarifications and corrections of errors.***

To meet the general case, the technical comments from the non-ITU group MUST be taken into account before determination to apply the approval process. The above wording is a little vague on this. In the second sentence, perhaps you should change "has been determined" to "is ready to be determined." [PTT] I had in mind that WG Last Call is begun only when design seems to be stable. Hence the proper sequence is determination followed by WG Last Call. Neither should happen before all requirements have been understood and accounted for. One reason for putting Last Call after determination is to meet a concern on the ITU-T side that the IETF might never converge if they weren't faced with the sort of finite time limits the ITU process provides.

I'm sorry they feel that way. However, "determination" doesn't happen until the Rapporteur (usually with consensus of the group) determines the text is stable enough to have the approval process applied to it. Similarly, WG Last Call doesn't happen until the WG chair determines the text is stable enough to start the IETF approval process. The main difference is that in ITU "determination" happens at a WP (not Rapporteur's) meeting and in IETF it can happen via email. In either case, the Rapporteur and WG chair have to coordinate their activities.

As has occured in several cases, an I-D may go through a couple of cycles of WG Last Call before it goes to IETF Last Call. In my view, WG Last Call should occur before determination. It might be feasible that IETF Last Call happen after determination (i.e., when the white contribution is submitted to ITU). there is still the issue of Resolution 1 recommending only editorial changes (no technical changes other than errata) be made after determination. Theoretically, this would preclude IETF last call from introducing any changes to the document. As has been seen, SG16 isn't too worried with that last concern.

In any case, the new ITU approval process will probably apply before this agreement really takes effect. But this agreement should be readily transferable.

A point that came up in discussion here: final decision for "Formal Comment" documents should be that of the initiating party, rather than mutual consent. Also, is the IESG/IETF going to agree that only clarifications and corrections of errors will be allowed in IETF Last Call and IESG review? The interpretation of "clarifications and corrections of errors." can deviate widely between groups. [PTT] It has worked in the current cycle. Anyway, I'm sure they'll put their own imprint on this before it gets put into play, so they can speak for themselves.

It depends on what you mean by the "current cycle". I assume you mean after Geneva. If you can come up with a way to get to now without repeating 10/99 - 2/00 it would be good. ...snip...

If there is going to be any comment or agreement between the groups, the distribution of the documentation and procedure for providing comments has to be available to all the IETF. Open availability of documentation should be a non-negotiable term of the agreement. This should be made clear for each mode.

For IETF this is easy. For ITU, this is no different than just sending an email to the IETF mail list saying that they are working on a draft Recommendation and if you are an ITU Sector Member you can comment. [PTT] You're right on this last. It may be that it's not worth mentioning the "Informal Comment" mode. The key point is not to require the ITU to make any document which refers to H.248 freely available -- only those which contribute to the evolution of the protocol itself.

I think it is probably important to keep. Perhaps you are thinking of Notification. In this case, the ITU SG would notify the IETF that an overlapping topic is under discussion and those participants in IETF who are also Sector Members could then choose to particpate in ITU (or not). For example, something like this would have been beneficial in SG13's work on I.ipatm. If SG16 wants comment, they need to provide the documentation (which they do). BTW, SG16 is not a real problem here since they have been progressive enough to open up their documentation to the public. They should be a role model for other ITU SGs in this regard. ...snip...

------------------------------------------------------------------- Chip Sharp CTO Consulting Engineering Cisco Systems Reality - Love it or Leave it. http://www.netaid.org -------------------------------------------------------------------

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For help on this mail list, send "HELP ITU-SG16" in a message to listserv@mailbag.intel.com