Jon -
Thank you for your comments on the P802 and P802.1AX PAR actions.
P802 extension request:
I have asked James to prepare a plan for the completion of this project, and this will be presented in the closing EC meeting. My expectation is that the project will require at most 2 further recirculations, and that completion within the requested extension period is achievable.
However, in my opinion, the biggest risk to the completion of this project is the propensity for the balloters to indulge in the standard makers' favourite passtime of turd polishing. Any standard is, to a greater or lesser extent, a turd, and no amount of buffing it up will change that fact; Standard 802 is no exception, and we have now been buffing it up for several years. I have made appeals in at least two closing EC meetings for the EC/WG voters to respond to the ballot with restraint so that we can get the project finished; however, we still receive large numbers of comments, many of which should have been made and dealt with way back in the WG ballot phase of the project.
It is high time we all shut our eyes and voted "Yes" on this project, warts and all, and saved our efforts for a future revision when there will be more serious work to be done on the document. For that reason, I have deliberately only asked for a 1 year extension; if it takes longer than that, frankly I believe that we would be better off abandoning this revision project and starting again with a new PAR, so this is the very last extension that I plan to request for the current revision project.
As for the 802.1 leadership "enforcing" a project plan, that is just an unrealistic expectation as anyone involved in a process like this should very well understand; any time you come up with a way that a project plan can be enforced with a volunteer workforce, do let me know - in nearly 30 years of standards development activities, I haven't discovered that secret so far.
P802.1AX PAR modification request:
Adding "“5.2” to 8.1 prior to the explanation would be fine by me. However, given that this PAR modification request has now been pre-submitted, I would suggest that the practical way to get the change incorporated would be for you (or another NesCom member) to make the comment on the submitted PAR on the NesCom website, so that the change is documented in the NesCom database; I can then respond to the comment on the system and the NesCom admin can make the actual change to the text on the master copy of the extension request.