RSE Wiki Archive

User Tools

Site Tools

Trace:
github_auth48_experiment

Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

Link to this comparison view

Both sides previous revision Previous revision
Next revision 		Previous revision
github_auth48_experiment [2021/02/05 12:12]
arusso 		github_auth48_experiment [2021/02/24 00:15]
arusso
Line 4: Line 4:
  
 ^                ^   RFC 8446   ^  RFC 8829  ^ ^                ^   RFC 8446   ^  RFC 8829  ^
-| I-D            |  [[https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-tls13|draft-ietf-tls-tls13-28]] |  [[https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-rtcweb-jsep|draft-ietf-rtcweb-jsep]] |+| I-D         |  [[https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-tls13|draft-ietf-tls-tls13-28]] |  [[https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-rtcweb-jsep|draft-ietf-rtcweb-jsep]] | 
 +| Pages submitted |  156 pages |   115 pages |
 | I-D approved   |  2018-03-21 |   2018-03-01\\ (into MISSREF state) | | I-D approved   |  2018-03-21 |   2018-03-01\\ (into MISSREF state) |
 | AUTH48 start   |  2018-06-14 |   2020-07-06 | | AUTH48 start   |  2018-06-14 |   2020-07-06 |
 | Publication    |  2018-08-10 |   2021-01-20 | | Publication    |  2018-08-10 |   2021-01-20 |
 | GitHub repo    |  https://github.com/tlswg/tls13-rfc |  https://github.com/rtcweb-wg/jsep | | GitHub repo    |  https://github.com/tlswg/tls13-rfc |  https://github.com/rtcweb-wg/jsep |
 +^ AUTH48 details  ^^^
 +| Time in state  |   8.2 weeks |   28.3 weeks |
 +| # questions at start  |   58 |    60\\ (yielded [[https://github.com/rtcweb-wg/jsep/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aclosed+assignee%3Aajeanmahoney|78 issues]] in GitHub) |  
  
 ==== Process Plan in 2018 ==== ==== Process Plan in 2018 ====
Line 30: Line 34:
   - Final approval for the full document needs to result in an explicit email to the the RPC from each author indicating approval. GitHub will be used for editorial discussion, but the final text approval will be done via email.    - Final approval for the full document needs to result in an explicit email to the the RPC from each author indicating approval. GitHub will be used for editorial discussion, but the final text approval will be done via email. 
  
-==== Evaluation Criteria (defined in 2018) ====+==== Evaluation Criteria in 2018 ====
  
 === RPC Criteria === === RPC Criteria ===
  
-Does GitHub seem to provide a easy to use mechanism for:+Does GitHub seem to provide an easy-to-use mechanism for:
   * tracking changes during AUTH48 in such a way that the RPC can query, at any point of time in the future, who approved those changes?   * tracking changes during AUTH48 in such a way that the RPC can query, at any point of time in the future, who approved those changes?
   * having clear interactions with all parties that need to submit approvals during AUTH48?   * having clear interactions with all parties that need to submit approvals during AUTH48?
Line 40: Line 44:
  
 === Measurements === === Measurements ===
-  * Average time in AUTH48 state for standard process documents:  +  * Average time in AUTH48 state for standard process documents 
-  * Average time in AUTH48 state for 100+ page standard process documents:  +  * Average time in AUTH48 state for 100+ page standard process documents 
-  * Time in AUTH48 state for this document:  +  * Time in AUTH48 state for this document  
-  * Number of questions at start of AUTH48: +  * Number of questions at start of AUTH48 
-  * Number of pull requests afterwards:+  * Number of pull requests afterwards
  
-For RFC 8446: +=== Measurements in 2018 and 2020 === 
-  * Average time in AUTH48 state for standard process documents:  +^                            ^   RFC 8446   ^ RFC 8829   ^ 
-    * average times in AUTH48 state from +| AUTH48 time using GitHub   | 8.2 weeks     | 28.3 weeks    | 
-      * June 1 report: 3.0 weeks +^ Comparing with standard process ^^^ 
-      * May 1 report: 3.2 weeks +| Concurrent Avg. AUTH48 time*   | 3.2 weeks    | 10.1 weeks    | 
-      * Apr 1 report: 3.4 weeks +| Avg. AUTH48 time for docs over 100 pages<nowiki>**</nowiki>  | 4.4 weeks (n=7)  | 3.5 weeks (n=6)   |
-  * Average time in AUTH48 state for 100+ page standard process documents:  +
-    * Average 7.7 weeks in AUTH48 state for the 16 RFCs over 100 pages (published in 2016 + 2017 + YTD). +
-    * Average 4.4 weeks in AUTH48 state for the 7 RFCs over 100 pages (published in 2017 + YTD). +
-      * Note: half of the 100+ page documents had an AUTH state (and for those that did, 3.2 weeks were in that state) +
-  * Time in AUTH48 state for this document:  +
-    * 8.2 weeks +
-  * Number of questions at start of AUTH48: 58+
  
-=== Notes === 
-  * future work will require mapping of GitHub account names to Authors, WG Chairs, Document Shepherds, ADs, Stream Managers (possible GDPR implications this information is outside the publishing industry norm for information stored about an individual during a publication process) 
  
 +* using standard AUTH48 process for the 3 months preceding publication.\\
 +<nowiki>**</nowiki> using standard AUTH48 process for the 18 months preceding publication.
  
-=== Feedback from Eric Rescorla (author, RFC 8446) === 
-<code> 
-We experimented with using Github for the publication of TLS 1.3. 
-The overall process was that Github was used primarily for feedback: 
  
-1. The RFC Editor supplied iterative versions of the XML files. +=== Notes === 
-2. The draft editor put them up on Github (initially as PRs +  * future work will require mapping of GitHub account names to Authors, WG Chairs, Document Shepherds, ADs, Stream Managers (possible GDPR implications this information is outside the publishing industry norm for information stored about an individual during a publication process)
-   and later just as commits) +
-3. We used Github's review tool to refine proposed changes both +
-   from the RPC and from the editor/chairs/AD +
-4. The editor provided updated XML from the editor/chair/AD changes +
-   in three ways: +
-   (a) patches +
-   (b) new XML files +
-   (c) OLD/NEW format +
- +
- +
-WHAT WENT WELL +
-I found Github very useful for refining the precise content of what +
-we plan to ship. Specifically: +
- +
-- The RPC makes a lot of changes in their first pass, and so +
-  Github reviews allowed me to individually see, accept, or reject +
-  each one. +
- +
-- As the editor/chair/AD team made our final changes, PRs structured +
-  that interaction and let us only ship when we had refined text. +
- +
-Having each XML revision in Github also made it possible to do +
-incremental diffs, which is inconvenient with the current practice +
-of updating the XML and TXT files on the FTP site with every revision. +
-In one case, it let us track down when a particular error was +
-introduced, which was helpful. +
- +
- +
-WHAT WENT BADLY +
-The initial AUTH48 version from the RFC Editor included both textual +
-changes and whitespace changes. This produced a very large diff which +
-was difficult to work with. In future, it would work better to have as +
-many intermediate versions of the XML file as possible (one for each +
-stage of the process) so that they can be individually reviewed. +
- +
-Having the RPC email out new XML files and then the editor upload +
-them is clunky. It would work better if the RPC uploaded them directly +
-(probably as PRs, though this is TBD). We adopted this strategy to +
-minimize overhead for the RPC, but it's easy to get lost. Conversely, +
-having the editor mail new XML to the RPC is clunky. This would +
-work better if Github were the master copy, which is how we do +
-things in WGs. +
- +
- +
- +
-THOUGHTS FOR FUTURE EXPERIMENTS +
-This was valuable for me. In previous RFCs I have done it has been +
-quite hard to keep track of all the changes and this was a bigger +
-project. As noted above, I found it very useful to be able to +
-individually see address each change that was made in AUTH48. +
-However, this hybrid approach where the editor is the interface +
-between the RPC and Github is awkward. +
- +
-If we try this again -- and I think we should -- I think we should do +
-one of two things: +
- +
-(a) Go full Github and use it the way WGs do. +
-(b) Limit the RPC's use of Github to seeing the editor comments on +
-    their changes. +
- +
-From the document editor perspective, (a) would be better, but it +
-seems like a big jump for the RPC, so we should probably look at (b). +
-I think the easiest way to do (b) would just be to have two repos: +
- +
-(a) the master repo which is used just to integrate the RPC's changes +
-(b) a second repo (the editor's fork) which is used to workshop +
-    the changes. +
- +
-Then we could treat the RPC's changes as PRs against the repo (as +
-I had originally intended) but they wouldn't have to deal with the +
-noise from the editor/chair/AD discussion. +
- +
-Ben also observed that because so much of the value of the RPC-editor +
-Github interaction is the first set of changes from the RPC (because +
-that's where most of the comments need to be made) that we could +
-skip Github entirely for that and just do the comments in Phabricator. +
-That seems like yet another tool people have to learn, though, so +
-I tend to think we should stick with Github for that. +
-  +
- +
--Ekr +
-</code> +
- +
-=== Feedback from RFC Editor (in 2018) === +
-This is the consolidated feedback from the RFC Editor regarding the experiment in using GitHub to process the TLS 1.3 document. Please note that this feedback focuses entirely on the GitHub experience; all comments regarding editorial changes are off topic. Also, the markdown conversation (i.e., editing in markdown, choosing a particular flavor of markdown) is also outside the scope of the experiment and this feedback. +
- +
-tl;dr +
-GitHub did not improve anything for the RFC Editor, and seemed to replicate and over-complicate the AUTH48 process where the authors and the RPC exchange updated XML files. +
- +
- +
-What Went Well: +
-  * The author seemed happier with the interactions with the RFC Editor. +
- +
-  * It was easy for the RFC Editor to download a copy of the revised XML files. +
- +
-What Was Challenging: +
-   * This was not a good choice of documents to do an experiment with; the length, criticality, and number of early questions that had to be held until AUTH48 made the overall experience more complicated than it would have been otherwise (from the RFC Editor's perspective). In particular, typically a set of questions would be sent during AUTH state (earlier in the process); for this document, all questions were held for AUTH48 state, and this added to the perceived excessive number of initial changes. +
- +
-  * While the discrete list in GitHub of each change seemed to make the review easier for the author, it proved to be significantly more difficult for the RPC editor. Rather than have the changes all in one place, this required a lot of clicking to each individual change to review the comments. It was very time consuming. +
- +
-  * Being on the "Watch" list resulted in a great deal of noise that the RPC editor had to work through. It was difficult to determine if comments and proposed changes were being directed to the RFC Editor or to the author. +
- +
-  * The RPC editor's AQs (Author Query) are often truncated in GitHub, which introduced some confusion on both the part of the author and the RPC editor. +
- +
-  * In a document that has a large number of AQs (as this one did), the GitHub UI will hide the majority of those questions, along with some of the comments from authors and other reviewers (e.g., "120 hidden conversations"); one has to manually "unhide" them, 20 at a time. This process needs to be repeated every time you leave/return to that page. +
- +
-  * There was definitely confusion about how the RPC editors actually edit a document reflected in a request to receive intermediate diff files that show one type of change (header changes only, whitespace changes only, editorial changes only, etc). That is not how documents are edited, and trying to do that would definitely increase the level or work required on the part of the RPC editor.+
  
-  * "Reflowed" text within the XML file is a common result of making editorial changes or inserting questions into the XML file. Typically, this has not been a concern for authors or the RPC, as such changes aren't reflected in the publication output, and the only diffs reviewed are text file vs. text file. In the case of this document, when reviewing XML diffs generated by GitHub, this introduced a number of changes that were noise. In the future, one way to avoid this would be careful editing of the source file to avoid reflowing the text or inserting comments mid-paragraph; however that seems like a lot of work for little return given the purpose behind the XML file. (As an aside to this one, in the future, improved XML diffing might not display changes to reflowed text in the XML -- the xmldiff tool is under development as part of the format work.)+==== Feedback in 2018 ====
  
 +  * See [[github_exp_2018_feedback]] for notes from the author and the RFC Editor.
  
-Proposed Changes to the next stage of the GitHub Experiment (JSEP draft)\\ +--------------------------------
-[Full detail of the process is on this page]+
  
-  * change to step 5 - rather than having the RFC Editor subscribe to all notifications, have the author(s) add an @mention when the RFC Editor needs to do something. (Assuming this feature will work if the account is not actually watching the repository.)+==== Work Flow in 2020-2021 ====
  
-  * change to step 10- rather than the RFC Editor emailing the link to the latest XML file to the author, the RPC editor will submit it directly to GitHub.+The authors and editor agreed to use the GitHub Pull Request work flow:
  
 +  - The authors answer the AQ in the comments of the issue (e.g., see comments for [[https://github.com/rtcweb-wg/jsep/issues/922|#922]]).
 +  - The authors indicate that an issue is ready for editor attention by labeling the issue "editor-ready" and assigning the issue to the editor.
 +  - The editor creates a branch off the rfced branch to address the issue.
 +  - The editor makes edits in that branch.
 +  - The editor commits changes.
 +  - The editor creates a Pull Request (PR) to submit the changes to the repo (e.g., [[https://github.com/rtcweb-wg/jsep/pull/997|PR #997]]).
 +  - The authors review the PR: 
 +    - If the PR is accepted, the authors merge the changes to the rfced branch, which closes the issue.
 +    - If the PR is rejected, the editor makes changes to the current branch and resubmits the PR. 
 +  - Repeat for the other issues.  
 +  
 +The authors and the editor set up notifications so that many of these steps automatically generated emails to involved parties (assigning/commenting on issues, use of @mentions, creating/accepting/rejecting PRs). 766 messages were generated during AUTH48.
  
-=== Community discussions === +==== Feedback in 2020-2021 ====
-https://www.rfc-editor.org/pipermail/rfc-interest/2019-February/010335.html+
  
 +  * See [[github_exp_2021_feedback]] for notes from the RFC Editor.
github_auth48_experiment.txt · Last modified: 2021/02/24 00:15 by arusso

Page Tools

Donate Powered by PHP Valid HTML5 Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki