[ih] ROAD [was: This Review is for Everyone]

[Greg Skinner]

On Mar 22, 2026, at 9:01 PM, Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> On 23-Mar-26 15:31, Craig Partridge via Internet-history wrote:
>> On Sun, Mar 22, 2026 at 6:25 PM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>> On 3/22/2026 5:20 PM, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history wrote:
>>>> but the person in charge of the nascent IETF needed a rare mix of skills
>>> 
>>> 
>>> It is indeed a rare mix.  And I think many of us worked very hard -- and
>>> very well -- over the decades, demonstrating just how rare it is.
>>> 
>> Expanding here (and recognizing that Dave and Noel were both on the initial
>> IESG with me), figuring out how to get the IETF to work was a tortuous
>> effort (and we can argue about definitions of "work").  If a working group
>> (WG), especially one working on a critical problem, failed to make progress
>> between successive meetings (which were roughly every 3.5 months) that was
>> a red flag, and failure to make progress over three meetings was an
>> emergency.  The IETF leadership tried different things, including:
>>    - snap WG meetings, scheduled on short-notice, where in-person
>>    participation was required.  This was used by SNMP and MIB WGs to deal with
>>    efforts to slow down the WG to favor impending non-SNMP products (it worked
>>    but I think in retrospect feels expedient and anti-openness);
>>    - changing WG chairs -- notably worked well for 8-bit SMTP (John Klensin
>>    stepped in and averted a disaster [with a LOT of technical help from
>>    others]);
>>    - splitting WGs and/or allowing competing WGs -- e.g. IS-IS and OSPF
>>    (generally worked well and continues as a practice to this day);
>>    - advertising that certain decisions would happen at the WG's next
>>    meeting e.g. for IP over ATM (worked well because it shut off debate -- a
>>    form of a closure vote);
>>    - closed WGs -- most notably the ROAD group, which sought to find a
>>    solution to IPv4 address exhaustion (mixed reviews on whether this worked
>>    or caused problems and I don't think has been done again)
> 
> Was ROAD actually a WG, or just an ad hoc committee formed by the IESG?
> 
> Either way, I think it *did* work, and (without going back to check the documents),
> I believe it identified three separate work items that all had to be tackled:
> 
> 1. Classful addressing was harmful
> 2. BGP3 was on the edge of disaster
> 3. IPv4 would run out of addresses
> 
> and then the IESG did stimulate the necessary work on those three topics.
> 
> (I only got roped in to help with #3 some time after Kobe.)
> 
>   Brian
> 

The IETF Datatracker identifies ROAD as a BOF (Birds of a Feather). [1] However, Phill Gross called it a WG in his IETF 22 Chair’s Message. [2] ROAD activities were documented as a draft [3] and eventually published as RFC 1380. [4]

--gregbo

[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/road/about/
[2] https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/22.pdf
[3] https://www.sobco.com/ipng/archive/iesg/iesg-roadplan-00.txt
[4] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc1380/