Network Working Group S. Trowbridge Internet-Draft Lucent Technologies Expires: December 18, 2003 S. Bradner Harvard University F. Baker Cisco Systems June 19, 2003 Procedure for handling liaison statements from and to various standards bodies draft-baker-liaisons-00 Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http:// www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on December 18, 2003. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved. 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 and industry fora. This procedure allows IETF to effectively collaborate with other organizations in the international standards community. Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Liaison Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1 Contents of a Liaison Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1.1 From: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1.2 To: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1.3 Title: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1.4 Response Contact: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1.5 Technical Contact: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1.6 Purpose: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.1.7 Deadline: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.1.8 Body: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.1.9 Attachments: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.2 Addressee Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. Liaison Statements from other SDOs, Consortia, and Fora to IETF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.1 Liaison Statement Submission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3.2 Web Page for displaying Liaison Statements . . . . . . . . . 8 4. Communicating IETF information to other SDOs, consortia, and fora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.1 Spontaneously generating Liaisons to other organizations . . 9 4.1.1 Transmitting IETF documents to other organizations . . . . . 9 4.1.2 Requests for Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 4.1.3 Requesting comments on Work in Progress . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.1.4 Requests for Other Actions (besides comments on IETF drafts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.2 Responding to Incoming Liaisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 4.2.1 Responding to Requests for Information . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2.2 Responding to Requests for Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2.3 Responding to Request for Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 4.2.4 Tool for generating liaisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4.3 Approval and Transmission of Liaison Statements . . . . . . 12 4.4 Indication on Outgoing Liaison Statements about how to Respond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 18 Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 1. Introduction This document describes the procedure for proper handling of incoming liaison statements and for generating liaison statements to be transmitted from IETF/ISOC so that IETF can effectively collaborate with other organizations in the international standards community. Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 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 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". 2.1.2 To: The statement will indicate what body it is to. In this document, this body is the "addressee". 2.1.3 Title: The statement will contain a short (single line) statement of its context and content. 2.1.4 Response Contact: The sender will indicate the electronic mail address that any response should be sent to. 2.1.5 Technical Contact: The sender will indicate one or more electronic mail addresses (persons or lists) that may be contacted for clarification of the liaison. 2.1.6 Purpose: While others are possible, a liaison generally has one of three purposes, and will clearly state its purpose using one of these labels: Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 For Information The liaison is to inform the addressee of something, and expects no response. For Comment The liaison requests commentary from the addressee, usually within a stated time frame. For Action The liaison requests that the addressee do something on the sender's behalf. In Reply The liaison replies to a previous liaison, usually one sent for comment or for action. 2.1.7 Deadline: Liaisons 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. 2.1.8 Body: As with any business letter, the liaison contains appropriate content. 2.1.9 Attachments: Attachments, if enclosed, may be in the form of documents sent with the liaison or may be URLs to similar documents including Intrenet Drafts. If these are in formats not used in the Internet Draft directory, the sending organization should assume that some IETF participants may be unable to read them. 2.2 Addressee Responsibilities The responsibilities of the addressee of a liaison statement are the same as the responsibilities of any business letter. A liaison calls for appropriate consideration of its contents, and if a reply is requested, a 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 be accomplished by a specified date, it will not be done for a specific reason, 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 Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 organization, but this cannot be assured; an SDO might send a liaison 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 arrives which appears misdirected, the assignee should promptly redirect it, by reassigning it in the ID Tracker and forwarding the associated email appropriately. In some cases, a liaison may require consideration by multiple bodies; in such cases, one takes the lead and responsibility. Liaisons are always important to the body that sent them. Having arrived at the appropriate body, the liaison may be more or less important to the addressee depending on the contents of the liaison and the expertise of the sender. If the liaison 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 is usually reflected in its deadline. A liaison 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 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. Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 3. 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 the organizations and issues are heavier. To manage liaison statements, the IETF will offer three web-accessible facilities: a form for submission of liaison statements, a web page organizing their contents and making them accessible, and a tracking system. 3.1 Liaison Statement Submission The IETF Secretariat will offer a liaison submission web page. This web page is accessible if and only if the person accessing it is authenticated by a specified certificate or cookie. The mechanism for distributing the authentication information is outside the scope of this document. The liaison submission web page is a form that requests the information listed in Section 2.1 from the authenticated user. Additionally, it has a button marked "reply" and if a reply has been generated, a pointer to the reply liaison page.. Submission of that information results in the following automated actions: o the addition of a URL to the "outstanding liaisons" summary web page, o creation of a display web page, o a tickler/status entry in the ID tracker, assigned to the relevant chair or AD o an email to the assignee, copying the liaison's technical contacts and an alias associated with the target (WG/BOF or other open mailing list, area directorate, IESG, IAB, etc.) that contains the URL to said web page and indicates that the liaison 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 ID tracker, including changing dates, reassignment, closing the liaison process, etc. The ID Tracker's "tickle" function periodically reminds assignee by email that the liaison has not yet been closed. It copies all of the above except the associated mailing list. Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 Since a liaison is a temporary document, it lives by the rules similar to those for IETF temporary documents: the liaison remains posted until six months after having been closed. 3.2 Web Page for displaying Liaison Statements The IETF site contains a section for current liaison activity. This consists of o A summary web page, o A status/summary web page for each active or recently closed liaison, and o zero or more associated files. The summary web page contains a simple frame, showing the title of the liaison, the URL for its web page, and the organizations it is from and to. The web page for the liaison contains the information entered during liaison submission, plus URLs for the various associated files. It also contains the current status of the liaison: who it is assigned to, its due date, and its status. It also contains a pointer to the ID Tracker entry for the liaison. [consideration: if the ID Tracker primarily contains assignee, status, etc, it may be worthwhile to leave the information found in the ID Tracker there and refer to it using this URL] Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 8] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 4. Communicating IETF information to other SDOs, consortia, and fora This includes liaisons sent in reply to liaisons sent by other bodies, and liaisons being sent by the IETF. 4.1 Spontaneously generating Liaisons to other organizations Liaisons can be generated at a WG, 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 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. 4.1.1 Transmitting IETF documents to other organizations The simplest case of approving sending of a liaison 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. Individual 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. 4.1.2 Requests for Information Another type of liaison that can be generated without the need for extensive consensus building on the email list is a request for information. The (co)chairs(s) can generate such a liaison when they recognize from the activities of the group that some additional Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 9] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 information would be 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. 4.1.3 Requesting comments on Work in Progress There may be cases where people feel that a document under development in the IETF would 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. 4.1.4 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. 4.2 Responding to Incoming Liaisons Any incoming liaison that indicates that it is for "Comment" or for "Action" requires a response by the deadline; other liaisons 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. Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 10] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 4.2.1 Responding to Requests for Information If another organization requests information that can be found in an IETF document of the types indicated in Section 4.1.1, this can be transmitted by the (co)chair(s) of the addressed group, indicating the level of agreement for the relevant document. 4.2.2 Responding to Requests for Comments If an incoming liaison 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 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 was addressed. It is possible to send this kind of a reply even if some of the comments are contradictory. 4.2.3 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 Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 11] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 to the request. If the IETF decides not to honor the request, or to honor it with modifications, the response should include the reasons and, if applicable, the alternate course of action. For tasks that require a great deal of time, it may be necessary that several liaisons be sent back to the originating organization to report the status of the work and the anticipated completion time. The first of these liaisons must be generated by the deadline indicated in the incoming liaison. 4.2.4 Tool for generating liaisons The liaison page described in Section 3 may be used to generate a reply. If an authenticated person (usually a working group char or AD) selects "reply", a new liaison page is generated from the existing one, to send the reply using. The "reply-to" email address is used as a target rather than the selection of working groups and areas, and the selection of working groups and areas is displayed as a "from" field. In the case that the IETF is originating the liaison, the appropriate target must be. 4.3 Approval and Transmission of Liaison Statements It is important that appropriate leadership review be made of proposed IETF liaison statements and that those who write such statements who claim to be speaking on behalf of IETF are truly representing IETF views. All outgoing liaison statements will be copied to IETF Secretariat by the liaison page.Copying liaison statements to the Secretariat is to ensure posting of the outgoing liaison statements as described in section 5. For a liaison statement generated on behalf of an IETF working group, the working group chair(s) must have generated, or must agree with the sending of the liaison statement, and must advise the Area Director(s) that the liaison statement has been sent by copying the appropriate Area Directors on the message. For a liaison statement generated on behalf of an IETF Area, the Area Director(s) must have generated or must agree with the sending of the liaison statement. If the liaison statement is not sent by the Area Directors then their agreement is indicated by copying the Area Directors on the message. For a liaison statement generated on behalf of the IETF as a whole, the IETF Chair must have generated or must agree with the sending of the liaison statement. If the liaison statement is not sent by the Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 12] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 IETF Chair then his or her agreement is indicated by copying the IETF Chair on the message. 4.4 Indication on Outgoing Liaison Statements about how to Respond All outgoing liaison statements should indicate how to respond. This is standard text which can be appended by the secretariat when the liaison statement is sent. This text should read: Please send any responses to this liaison statement via email to statements@ietf.org, indicating Attention: (xxx Working Group)|(xxx Area)|IETF Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 13] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 5. 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 liaisons effectively, resulting in people working in other organizations becoming frustrated with it. Various organizations have also used the liaison 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. Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 14] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 6. 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. 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. Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 15] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 Normative References [1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [2] Fishman, G. and S. Bradner, "Internet Engineering Task Force and International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunications Standardization Sector Collaboration Guidelines", RFC 3356, August 2002. [3] 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. 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 Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 16] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 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 Trowbridge, et al. Expires December 18, 2003 [Page 17] Internet-Draft Handling of Liaison Statements June 2003 Intellectual Property Statement The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11. Copies of claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF Secretariat. 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