Network Working Group S. Trowbridge
Internet-Draft Lucent Technologies
Expires: March 15, 2005 S. Bradner
Harvard University
F. Baker
Cisco Systems
September 14, 2004
Procedure for Handling Liaison Statements Between Standards Bodies
draft-baker-liaison-statements-02
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Abstract
This document describes the procedure for proper handling of incoming
liaison statements from other standards development organizations
(SDOs), consortia, and industry fora, and for generating liaison
statements to be transmitted from IETF/ISOC to other SDOs, consortia
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and industry fora. This procedure allows IETF to effectively
collaborate with other organizations in the international standards
community.
Liaison Statements are only exchanged within the context of
established liaison relationships, which are managed by the IAB.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Liaison Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1 Contents of a Liaison Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1 Envelope Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1.1 From: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1.2 To: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1.3 Title: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1.4 Response Contact: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1.5 Technical Contact: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.1.6 Purpose: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.1.7 Deadline: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2 Liaison Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2.1 Body: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1.2.2 Attachments: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Addressee Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Liaison Statements from other SDOs, Consortia, and Fora to
IETF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1 Liaison Statement Submission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2 Mechanism for displaying Liaison Statements . . . . . . . 9
5. Communicating IETF information to other SDOs, consortia,
and fora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1 Spontaneously generating Liaison Statements to other
organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1.1 Transmitting IETF documents to other organizations . . 10
5.1.2 Requests for Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1.3 Requesting comments on Work in Progress . . . . . . . 11
5.1.4 Requests for Other Actions (besides comments on
IETF drafts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.2 Responding to Incoming Liaison Statements . . . . . . . . 11
5.2.1 Responding to Requests for Information . . . . . . . . 12
5.2.2 Responding to Requests for Comments . . . . . . . . . 12
5.2.3 Responding to Request for Action . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.2.4 Generating Liaison Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
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6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
A. Implementation Road map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A.1 Phase I: Initial implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A.1.1 Displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
A.1.2 Actions on submission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
B. Phase II: Additional instrumentation and responses to
usage experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 21
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1. Introduction
This document describes the procedure for generating and handling
liaison statements between the IETF/ISOC and other SDOs, so that IETF
can effectively collaborate with other organizations in the
international standards community. These liaison statements can be
exchanged between IETF/ISOC and organizations with whom the IAB has
created a liaison relationship (see [I-D.iab-liaison-mgt]).
The implementation of the procedure and supporting tools is occurring
in a minimum of three phases. The initial phase has been the
development of a prototype (in the best tradition of "rough consensus
and running code"), by Sunny Lee of Foretec, in parallel with the
development of this specification. The second phase is the
conversion of that prototype to an operational tool. This
operational tool lacks an automated tracking tool; rather, the
liaison manager implements that in his or her own way. The third
phase will include that tracking tool.
1.1 Definitions
For purposes of clarity, we use the following definitions:
Addressee: The working group(s) or other party(s) in the IETF to whom
a liaison statement is addressed.
Assignee: The person responsible to act on a liaison statement,
initially either the person to whom it was addressed or the chair
of the group to which it was addressed. the task may be
reassigned to another person in the same or a different group as
appropriate.
Liaison manager: As defined by [I-D.iab-liaison-mgt], an IETF person
who agrees to manage a liaison relationship for the IETF.
Liaison statement: A letter as described in this document, exchanged
between organizations.
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2. Liaison Statements
A Liaison Statement is a business letter sent by one standards
organization to another. These organizations may be at any level
(working group, area, etc); generally, the sender and receiver are
peer organizations. A liaison statement may have any purpose, but
generally the purpose is to solicit information, comment, or action.
2.1 Contents of a Liaison Statement
Liaison statements may be very formal or quite informal, depending on
the rules of the body generating them. Any liaison statement,
however, will always contain certain information, much as an business
letter does. This information will include the following:
2.1.1 Envelope Information
The following fields are meta-statements regarding the liaison
statement.
2.1.1.1 From:
The statement will indicate what body it is from; it may be from, for
example, an IETF working group or area, an ITU-T Study Group, Working
Party, or Question, etc. In this document, this body is the
"sender".
2.1.1.2 To:
The statement will indicate what body it is to. In this document,
this body is the "addressee".
2.1.1.3 Title:
The statement will contain a short (usually single line) statement of
its context and content.
2.1.1.4 Response Contact:
The sender will indicate the electronic mail address that any
response should be sent to.
2.1.1.5 Technical Contact:
The sender will indicate one or more electronic mail addresses
(persons or lists) that may be contacted for clarification of the
liaison statement.
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2.1.1.6 Purpose:
While others are possible, a liaison statement generally has one of
three purposes, and will clearly state its purpose using one of these
labels:
For Information: The liaison statement is to inform the addressee of
something, and expects no response.
For Comment: The liaison statement requests commentary from the
addressee, usually within a stated time frame.
For Action: The liaison statement requests that the addressee do
something on the sender's behalf, usually within a stated time
frame.
2.1.1.7 Deadline:
Liaison Statements that request comment or action will indicate when
the comment or action is required. If the addressee cannot
accomplish the request within the stated period, courtesy calls for a
response offering a more doable deadline or an alternative course of
action.
2.1.2 Liaison Content
The following fields are the substance of the liaison statement.
IETF participants use a wide variety of systems, meaning that
document formats that are not universally readable are problematic.
As a result, documents enclosed with the body or attachments should
be in PDF, W3C HTML (without proprietary extensions), or ASCII text
format. If they were originally in a proprietary format, such as
Microsoft Word, that file may also be sent, but should be accompanied
by a generally readable file.
2.1.2.1 Body:
As with any business letter, the liaison statement contains
appropriate content explaining the issues or questions at hand.
2.1.2.2 Attachments:
Attachments, if enclosed, may be in the form of documents sent with
the liaison statement or may be URLs to similar documents including
Internet Drafts.
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3. Addressee Responsibilities
The responsibilities of the addressee of a liaison statement are the
same as the responsibilities of any business letter. A liaison
statement calls for appropriate consideration of its contents, and if
a reply is requested, an authoritative courteous reply within the
expected time frame. The reply may be that the information was
useful, that it was not useful, that the requested action has been
accomplished, it will be accomplished by a specified date, it will
not be done for a specific reason, an answer to a question posed, or
any other appropriate reply.
A liaison statement, like any other temporary document, must be
considered in terms of its relevance, importance, and its urgency.
One hopes that a liaison statement will be sent to the right
organization, but this cannot be assured; an SDO might send a liaison
statement to a specific IETF area which the area director deems is
better handled by one of the working groups, or it might be sent to
one working group when it should have gone to another. If a liaison
statement arrives which appears misdirected, the assignee should
promptly ask the liaison manager to redirect it appropriately. In
some cases, a liaison statement may require consideration by multiple
groups within the IETF; in such cases, one assignee takes the lead
and responsibility for developing a response.
Liaison Statements are always important to the body that sent them.
Having arrived at the appropriate body, the liaison statement may be
more or less important to the addressee depending on the contents of
the liaison statement and the expertise of the sender. If the
liaison statement seeks to influence the direction of a working
group's development, it should get the same consideration that any
temporary document receives. The working group chair may request the
sender's contacts to make their case to the IETF working group in the
same manner and on the same basis that an internet draft author makes
his case.
The urgency of a liaison statement is usually reflected in its
deadline. A liaison statement for informational purposes will have
no deadline; a courteous "thank you" is called for, after which the
working group may inform itself of the contents and close the
document. A liaison statement specifying a deadline, however, gives
the addressee a finite opportunity to influence the activity of
another body; if it fails to react in a timely fashion, it may miss
this opportunity.
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4. Liaison Statements from other SDOs, Consortia, and Fora to IETF
The process of handling a liaison statement is a little heavier than
the handling of a business letter, however, because it is important
to a relationship with another SDO established by the IAB. To manage
liaison statements, the IETF will offer three electronically
accessible facilities: a form for submission of liaison statements, a
mechanism organizing their contents and making them accessible, and a
tracking system. Initially, the tracking system will be a manual
procedure used by the liaison manager; in the future, it is good if
this could be automated.
4.1 Liaison Statement Submission
The IETF Secretariat will provide an electronic method for submission
of liaison statements by authorized users.
The liaison statement submission mechanism is a form that requests
the information listed in Section 2.1 from the authenticated user.
Submission of that information results in the following actions:
o creation of a display mechanism containing the envelope data in
Section 2.1.1 and URLs pointing to the items from Section 2.1.2,
an indication of whether the liaison statement has been replied
to, and if so, on what date,
o the addition of a URL to the "outstanding liaison statements"
summary mechanism,
o when an automated tracking system has been implemented, a tickler/
status entry in the tracking system, assigned to the relevant
chair or AD,
o an email to the assignee copying
* the liaison statement's technical contacts
* The supervisor of the assignee (if it is to a working group,
the relevant ADs; if to an AD, the IETF Chair),
* The liaison manager for the sending SDO,
* an alias associated with the assignee (WG/BOF or other open
mailing list, area directorate, IESG, IAB, etc.)
This email should contain the URL to the liaison statement
mechanism, text indicating that the liaison statement has arrived,
requests appropriate consideration, and if a deadline is
specified, a reply by the deadline.
The assignee has the capability of interacting with the liaison
manager and (once implemented) the tracking system, including
replying, changing dates, reassignment, closing the liaison statement
process, etc.
The liaison manager or tracking system's "tickle" function
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periodically reminds the assignee by email that the liaison statement
has not yet been closed. This tickle email copies all of the above
except the associated mailing alias.
4.2 Mechanism for displaying Liaison Statements
The IETF site contains a section for current liaison statement
activity. This consists of
o A submission mechanism,
o A status/management mechanism for each active or recently closed
liaison statement, and zero or more associated files.
The status/management mechanism contains a simple frame, showing the
title of the liaison statement, the URL for its mechanism, and the
organizations it is from and to.
The display for liaison statement itself contains
o the liaison statement envelope information (Section 2.1),
o direct content (Section 2.1),
o URLs for the various associated files
o current status of the liaison statement: who it is assigned to,
its due date, and its status,
o pointer to the liaison manager and tracking system entry for the
liaison statement.
o reply-generation mechanism (see Section 5.2.4)
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5. Communicating IETF information to other SDOs, consortia, and fora
This includes liaison statements sent in reply to liaison statements
sent by other bodies, and liaison statements being originated by the
IETF.
5.1 Spontaneously generating Liaison Statements to other organizations
Liaison Statements can be generated at a Working Group, Area, or IETF
level to another organization. The respective (co)chair(s) are
responsible for judging the degree of consensus for sending the
particular liaison statement and what the content should be. The
amount of consensus required to send a liaison statement varies
greatly depending on its content. This section gives some rough
guidance about how much consensus should be sought before sending a
liaison statement to another organization.
5.1.1 Transmitting IETF documents to other organizations
The simplest case of approving sending of a liaison statement from
IETF is where the information that is being transmitted consists of
an IETF document that has some level of agreement within the IETF.
The process that the document has already gone through to achieve its
current status assures the necessary level of consensus. Any
Standards Track RFC (Draft Standard, Proposed Standard, Internet
Standard, BCP), and any working group document expected to be placed
on the standards track, may be transmitted without concern.
Informational documents may also be exchanged readily when they
represent a working group position or consensus, such as a
requirements or architecture document.
In all cases, the document status must be appropriately noted. In
the case of a Working Group Internet Draft, it must be clear that the
existence of the draft only indicates that the Working Group has
accepted the work item and, as the standard disclaimer says, the
actual content can be treated as nothing more than Work in Progress.
Individually submitted Internet Drafts, Experimental or Historical
RFCs, and non-working group informational documents should not be
transmitted without developing further consensus within the relevant
group, as these documents cannot be truthfully represented as any
kind of IETF position.
5.1.2 Requests for Information
Another type of liaison statement that can be generated without the
need for extensive consensus building on the email list is a request
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for information. The (co)chairs(s) can generate such a liaison
statement when they recognize from the activities of the group that
some additional information is helpful, for example, to resolve an
impasse (i.e., don't waste time arguing over what the real meaning or
intent of another SDOs document is, just ask the other SDO and base
further work on the "official" answer).
Other requests for information may be to request access to certain
documents of other organizations that are not publicly available.
5.1.3 Requesting comments on Work in Progress
There may be cases where people feel that a document under
development in the IETF may benefit from the input of experts in
another relevant SDO, consortium, or forum. Generally, this is done
before the text is "fully cooked" so that input from experts in
another organization can be included in the final result. Comments
would generally be solicited for a standards track working group
Internet Draft and some level of consensus should be reached on the
working group or other open mailing list that it is appropriate to
ask another organization for comments on an IETF draft.
5.1.4 Requests for Other Actions (besides comments on IETF drafts)
There are a number of other kinds of actions that might reasonably be
requested of another organization:
o In the case of overlapping or related work in another
organization, a request could be made that the other organization
change something to align with the IETF work.
o A request could be made for another organization to start a new
work item (on behalf of IETF).
o A request could be made for another organization to stop a work
item (presumably because it overlaps or conflicts with other work
in the IETF).
These sorts of requests are quite serious. They can certainly be
made where appropriate, but these kinds of requests should only be
made where there is the clearest possible consensus within the
particular Working Group, Area, or within the IETF at large.
5.2 Responding to Incoming Liaison Statements
Any incoming liaison statement that indicates that it is for
"Comment" or for "Action" requires a response by the deadline; other
liaison statements may also be replied to, although a reply is
generally optional. It is the responsibility of the (co)chair(s) of
the addressed organization to make sure that a response is generated
by the deadline.
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5.2.1 Responding to Requests for Information
If another organization requests information that can be found in an
IETF document of the types indicated in Section 5.1.1, this can be
transmitted by the (co)chair(s) of the addressed group, indicating
the level of agreement for the relevant document.
5.2.2 Responding to Requests for Comments
If an incoming liaison statement requests comments on a document from
another organization, a discussion will occur on the mailing list
where participants can provide their comments.
If a clear consensus is evident from the pattern of comments made to
the mailing list, the (co)chair(s) can summarize the conclusions in a
reply liaison statement back to the originating organization.
If no clear consensus is evident from the pattern of comments on the
mailing list, a response is still due to the originator. A summary
of the email comments can be created and sent to the originator, and
represented as "collected comments" rather than as a consensus of the
IETF group to which the liaison statement was addressed. It is
possible to send this kind of a reply even if some of the comments
are contradictory.
5.2.3 Responding to Request for Action
A request for Action is a fairly serious thing. Examples of the
kinds of actions that may be expected are:
o In the case of overlapping or related work in another
organization, another organization may request that the IETF align
its work with that of the other organization.
o A request could be made for IETF to undertake a new work item.
o A request could be made for IETF to stop a work item (presumably
because it overlaps or conflicts with other work in the
originating organization).
Consensus of the receiving group within IETF is clearly necessary to
be able to fulfill the request. Fulfilling the request may require a
great deal of time and multiple steps, for example, if initiating or
stopping a work item requires a charter change.
There is, of course, no requirement that IETF perform the action that
was requested. But the request should always be taken seriously, and
a response is required. The originating organization must always be
informed of what, if anything, the IETF has decided to do in response
to the request. If the IETF decides not to honor the request, or to
honor it with modifications, the response should include the reasons
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and, if applicable, the alternate course of action.
For tasks that require a great deal of time, it may be necessary that
several liaison statements be sent back to the originating
organization to report the status of the work and the anticipated
completion time. The first of these liaison statements must be
generated by the deadline indicated in the incoming liaison
statement.
5.2.4 Generating Liaison Statements
Authenticated IETF participants, usually working group chairs, area
directors, or other officials, need to be able to send liaison
statements to other SDOs. The mechanism described in Section 4.2,
but listing appropriate contacts in other SDOs with which the IAB has
established liaison relationships, provides that capability.
As a convenience, the liaison statement page described in Section 4.2
may be used to generate a reply. If an authenticated person (usually
a working group char or AD) selects "reply", a new liaison statement
page is generated from the existing one, reversing the addressing
information. IETF documents should be referenced by URL, such as
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/>file< or
ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/>file<.
The process of generating and approving transmission of liaison
statements is a matter of IETF process, and is specified in
[I-D.iab-liaison-mgt].
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6. IANA Considerations
This document makes no requests to IANA.
Note to RFC Editor: during publication, this section may be removed.
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7. Security Considerations
One of the key considerations in developing this process has been the
possibility of a denial of service attack on the IETF and its
processes. Historically, the IETF has not handled liaison statements
effectively, resulting in people working in other organizations
becoming frustrated with it. Various organizations have also used
the liaison statement process to attempt to impose deadlines on IETF
activities, which has been frustrating for all concerned - the IETF
because it does not accept such, and the other organizations because
they feel ignored.
This is the reason that the submission process is automated, and
restricted to authenticated submitters. While the IETF cannot
rate-limit the submitters it authenticates, it can control who it
authenticates, and it can manage its internal pipelines.
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8. Acknowledgements
This text has been prompted by discussions with numerous individuals
within IETF and other Standards Development Organizations and Fora,
including Gary Fishman and Bert Wijnen. It has been developed in
cooperation with [I-D.iab-liaison-mgt], which is to say with the
express cooperation of the chair of the IAB, Leslie Daigle. Personal
experiences and some "miscues" in coordinating work across ITU-T
Study Group 15 and the IETF Sub-IP Area have also motivated this
work. Some drafts addressing individual problems (e.g.,
draft-andersson-mpls-g-chng-proc-00.txt and RFC 3427) make it clear
that a more general, consistent solution is needed for dealing with
outside organizations. Certain ideas have been borrowed from these
texts.
Barbara Fuller, Sunny Lee, and Michael Lee developed a prototype and
commented in detail on the document. Their inputs directly resulted
in the appendices describing the implementation road map.
9 Normative References
[I-D.iab-liaison-mgt]
Daigle, L., "IAB Processes for management of liaison
relationships", draft-iab-liaison-mgt-02 (work in
progress), July 2004.
[ITU.ietf.guidelines]
International Telecommunications Union, "IETF and ITU-T
collaboration guidelines, Supplement 3,
http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-t/rec/a/T-REC-A.Sup3-200111-I!!PDF-E.pdf"
, ITU-T SERIES A: ORGANIZATION OF THE WORK OF ITU-T,
November 2001,
<http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-t/rec/a/T-REC-A.Sup3-200111-I!!PDF-E.pdf>
.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3356] Fishman, G. and S. Bradner, "Internet Engineering Task
Force and International Telecommunication Union -
Telecommunications Standardization Sector Collaboration
Guidelines", RFC 3356, August 2002.
[RFC3667] Bradner, S., "IETF Rights in Contributions", BCP 78, RFC
3667, February 2004.
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Authors' Addresses
Stephen J. Trowbridge
Lucent Technologies
1200 West 120th Avenue, Suite 232, Room 34W34
Westminster, Colorado 80234-2795
USA
Phone: +1 303 920 6545
Fax: +1 303 920 6553
EMail: sjtrowbridge@lucent.com
Scott Bradner
Harvard University
29 Oxford St.
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
USA
Phone: +1 617 495 3864
Fax:
EMail: sob@harvard.edu
Fred Baker
Cisco Systems
1121 Via Del Rey
Santa Barbara, California 93117
USA
Phone: +1-408-526-4257
Fax: +1-413-473-2403
EMail: fred@cisco.com
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Appendix A. Implementation Road map
A.1 Phase I: Initial implementation
A.1.1 Displays
The descriptions of the required displays in Section 4.1 and Section
4.2 call for two sets of displays: one for the public (for viewing
liaison statements), and one for authorized users (for managing
liaison statements).
Displays for public view of liaison statements include:
o A Liaison Statements Web page that lists all incoming and outgoing
liaison statements (specific fields TBD). The title of each
liaison statement is a link to the details page for that liaison
statement.
o A detail page for each liaison statement that contains:
* All of the information specified in the subsections of Section
2.1.
* Links to all attachments that accompanied the liaison statement
or to documents that are mentioned in the statement but were
not provided as part of the submission.
* Links to all related liaison statements (e.g., replies).
Displays for managing liaison statements (e.g., for authorized users)
include:
o A summary page that offers mechanisms for:
* Creating and submitting a new liaison statement.
* Editing a liaison statement that the user has previously
created and submitted.
* Acting on a liaison statement that has been assigned to the
user.
o A template for creating and submitting a liaison statement. This
template allows the user to enter the information specified in
Section 2.1. The user is able to access the template at any time
(from a list of liaison statements that the user has previously
created and submitted), and update and resubmit the information.
o A detail page for managing a liaison statement assigned to the
user. This page is similar to the details page available to the
public. However, it also includes:
* A mechanism for replying to the liaison statement (initial
implementation)
* A link to a liaison statement tracking mechanism (future
implementation)
A.1.2 Actions on submission
Submission of a liaison statement results in the following actions:
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o The information is uploaded to the database.
o An e-mail message with the content specified in Section 4.1 is
sent to the addressee with copies to the addresses specified in
Section 4.1, and to the Secretariat (as specified in
[I-D.iab-liaison-mgt]).
o The liaison statement is added to the list on the Liaison
Statements Web page.
o Two detail pages are created for the liaison statement: one for
the public (to view the liaison statement), and one for the sender
and the assignee (to manage the liaison statement).
As specified in Section 5.2.4, when a user selects reply on the
details page of a liaison statement, a template for creating and
submitting a new liaison statement is generated from the existing one
that copies "From" to "To" and specifies the respondent as the
individual the response is coming "From". Submission of this reply
liaison statement results in the same set of actions as submission of
any new liaison statement. In addition, however, a link to the
details page of this liaison statement is added to the list of
related liaison statements on the details pages (both public and
management) of the original liaison statement (i.e., the one that the
user replied to).
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Appendix B. Phase II: Additional instrumentation and responses to usage
experience
The required features of the future liaison statement tracking system
are discussed in Section 4. They include mechanisms for:
o Designating an assignee; the assignee is initially is a person
associated with the body (IAB, IESG, Area, Working Group, etc) to
which the liaison statement is addressed, but may subsequently be
changed by an authorized party within the IETF.
o Indicating the status of the liaison statement (e.g., actions
required, actions taken, etc. Specific options TBD).
o Sending ticklers to the assignee (with copies to whomever is
appropriate) when action is required.
o Changing the status of the liaison statement, the deadline, or
other attributes.
o Reassigning responsibility.
o Closing the liaison statement.
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