Network Working Group J. Arkko (Editor) Internet-Draft Ericsson Intended status: Informational October 16, 2006 Expires: April 19, 2007 Guidance on Area Director Sponsoring of Documents draft-iesg-sponsoring-guidelines-00 Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. 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 April 19, 2007. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). Abstract There are a number of different methods by which an RFC can be published in addition to the regular submissions from a working group. This note discusses the publication of RFCs by finding a sponsoring Area Director to take it through IETF and Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) review. This note covers both the the processing in the IESG as well as guidance on when such sponsoring is appropriate. Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 1] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Requirements language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Submission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Processing Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5. Choosing Documents to Sponsor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 6. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 7. Summary of Changes to Existing Procedures . . . . . . . . . . 10 8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Appendix B. PROTO Write-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 15 Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 2] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 1. Introduction There are a number of different methods by which an RFC is published [RFC3932, I-D.iab-rfc-editor]: o Output from the Working Groups (WGs) to Standards Track, Best Current Practice (BCP), Experimental, or Informational. o Area Director (AD) Sponsored documents to Standards Track, Experimental, or Informational. o RFC Editor documents to Experimental or Informational. o Documents for which special rules exist. Only some of these methods involve review in the IETF. This note is concerned with the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) processing by the AD Sponsored method. This note also provides guidance for choosing between sponsored and RFC Editor submissions. This note describes procedures and working methods. It does not change any underlying rules such as those in RFC 2026 [RFC2026] or the operation of the RFC Editor as defined in [I-D.iab-rfc-editor]. 2. Requirements language In this document, the key words "MAY", "MUST, "MUST NOT", "OPTIONAL", "RECOMMENDED", "SHOULD", and "SHOULD NOT", are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]. 3. Submission Individual submissions can enter the process either by sending a request to the RFC Editor or through an agreement with an AD. RFC Editor document submission The authors contact the RFC Editor and request the publication as an RFC. The requested result in this case is an RFC Editor document. However, some submissions either have to be from the IETF or would benefit from being from the IETF. For instance, the document may request an IANA allocation from a space that has a Standards Action IANA rule (see RFC 2434 [RFC2434]). Such actions can not come from RFC Editor submissions. For a discussion of when a Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 3] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 document can not be processed as an RFC Editor submission, see RFC 3932 [RFC3932]. One possibility for such documents is to process them as AD Sponsored submissions. Other alternatives include finding or creating a suitable WG to process the document or abandoning the document altogether. The authors are responsible for the decision to proceed with a particular approach among the set of allowed options. The authors are also responsible for the effort of proposing a Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) session, convincing the IESG or one of the ADs that the document needs to be sponsored, etc. Agreement with an AD AD Sponsored submissions can also be initiated by the AD who is willing to sponsor a document. Such submissions are usually the result of the AD tracking the work earlier, or discussions between the authors and the AD. Document submissions to the RFC Editor are automatically entered to the IESG processing for the RFC 3932 check. AD sponsored document submissions require the sponsoring AD to enter the draft in the tracker and set the parameters appropriately (e.g., state set to "AD Review", status set to "Proposed Standard", and the area set correctly). Once the AD has agreed to sponsor a document, the authors need to provide a write-up similar to PROTO team write-ups from WGs. A suggested write-up form can be found from Appendix B. Previously, it was also possible to send a request to the secretariat for a document to be sponsored. This is no longer possible. Messages sent to iesg@ietf.org are NOT considered to be a submission at all. Messages sent to iesg-secretary@ietf.org prompt the secretariat to send the following response: Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 4] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 "We cannot process your request. You have two choices - direct submission to the RFC Editor, or finding an IETF Area Director to sponsor your draft as an individual submission to the IETF. Also, please consider the normal IETF publication path through an existing working group, or consider proposing a BoF at a future IETF meeting. Please see RFC 3932 for guidance on which documents may be suitable for direct submission to the RFC Editor. If you choose this option, please send your publication request to If you wish to seek Area Director sponsorship for an individual submission, the best solution is to contact the most relevant Area Director directly, with an explanation of why the draft is appropriate for IETF publication. The Area Director is also the best source of advice about whether an existing WG, or a BoF, may be applicable. The Area Directors and WGs are listed at: http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/wg-dir.html If for some reason you cannot identify the most relevant Area Director, please talk to the General Area Director first. The IETF Secretariat" 4. Processing Rules AD Sponsored documents to Standards Track require review in the IETF, IETF Last Call, and IESG approval. AD Sponsored documents to Experimental/Informational require some form of review in the IETF and IESG approval. Even the latter type of documents often go through an IETF Last Call as a means to solicit the IETF review. As RFC 2026 states, when a proposed standards action comes from outside Working Groups, the IETF Last Call period is at least four weeks. If the IESG believes that the community interest would be served by allowing more time for comment, it may decide on a longer Last-Call period or to explicitly lengthen a current Last-Call period. The exact nature of the review within the IETF is not specified, but it is expected that documents be posted for review in the relevant WG mailing lists. Often no relevant mailing list exists, in which case area-specific or IETF main discussion list can be used. Individual reviewers, review teams, and review boards for specific topics can Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 5] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 also be used. If no sufficient review has been obtained, the AD should solicit it explicitly. Note that discussing topics outside the charter of a WG can cause loss of focus in a WG, if a WG list is chosen for discussion. This should be considered when seeking review and when deciding to adopt documents for sponsoring. Sponsored submissions are treated in the same manner with other submissions in the actual IESG evaluation process. Existing discuss, appeal, recusing, etc. rules apply also to sponsored submissions. 5. Choosing Documents to Sponsor This section provides some guidelines for the use of the AD Sponsoring method. Such guidelines are useful when authors contact the AD and suggest that their document be sponsored. The rules are also useful in controlling the load on the IESG, and to ensure fairness. AD Sponsored documents are the only way to publish Standards Track documents outside WGs. IETF documents may also have a higher priority at the RFC Editor processing queue than RFC Editor submissions. When considering the choice between a sponsored document and an RFC Editor submission, the RFC 3932 rules play a role [RFC3932]. If the document generates a 3, 4 or 5 response based on RFC 3932 it is not appropriate for an RFC Editor submission. Sometimes such documents are suitable candidates for being sponsored, however. It would be useful to add, say, IANA rules or IPv6 considerations to an old specification that did not have them and for which no WG can be found. Such additions to standards track RFCs need to be on the standards track themselves, preventing the use of RFC Editor submissions. But a negative response from the RFC 3932 check may also indicate that the document is inappropriate or harmful. If the document is not changed, it should neither be sponsored by the ADs or published via the RFC Editor. In general, the decision to sponsor a document involves AD discretion. It is necessary for the AD to be willing to spend effort on the document. The following considerations should be applied: Document Track Documents that need to be on the Standards Track can only be published via WGs or the AD Sponsored method. Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 6] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 Documents that fall under this class should either be handled by the IETF in some manner or be dropped. This ultimate decision depends on, among other things, on the value of the document's contribution. The AD should also consider whether the normal IETF WG/BoF process should be employed instead. Some situations where this is impractical have been noted in Section 5. IANA Rules Documents that request "IETF Consensus" or "Standards Action" IANA allocations also need to use be WG submissions or AD Sponsored documents. Benefit from IETF Review Does the document need IETF-wide review, or is Independent Specification Review (ISR) sufficient? For instance, the AD can decide that while a particular document could be submitted via the RFC Editor, the added review at the IETF and IESG would be useful and would benefit the community. As an example, the AD may expect that a particular protocol will be widely deployed, and that providing additional IETF review makes the protocol more likely to be useful for the community and less likely to cause problems. Availability of Reviewer Resources Are there persons that can help with the review of the document during, for instance, the IETF Last Call? Is there a risk that such persons become distracted from their chartered work at the IETF because of the extra reviews being requested? Fairness ADs should be fair in choosing the documents that they decide to sponsor. For instance, they should not sponsor documents only from their own company or their friends; the content of the document and its relevance to the Internet community should be the guiding factor. Where an AD is one of the authors of a document, he or she can not be the sponsoring AD. Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 7] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 Relevance The above process issues need to be considered together with the relevance the document has for the Internet community. Does it solve an important problem? Does it describe an issue that affects a significant number of users in the Internet? Does it create an interface or convention where widespread interoperability would be necessary? For instance, a document that describes a serious vulnerability or an architectural issue in protocols in the AD's area is a good candidate for being sponsored. Clarifications and small updates of protocols in the AD's area are also good candidates when no suitable working working group exists, and the scale of the change does not warrant the creation of one. A document specifying a particular vendor's proprietary protocol is typically not suitable for being sponsored. A document specifying an alternate approach to an existing Standards Track solution is typically not a likely candidate either. Quality As with relevance, the quality of the document and the expected outcome of the IETF review process affect the decision. In general, the AD should only sponsor documents that have he or she believes in; the decision to sponsor should only be taken after at least as detailed review as the AD performs for regular WG submissions. As with BoFs, it is possible that the IETF community is divided or unable to agree on a proposal, even if the proposal itself is of high quality and relevant. The AD should consider the likelihood of achieving consensus in IETF review. ADs can always decline to sponsor a given document. It may take a while to find the right AD. Sometimes the contacted AD may suggest that the document fits better in another AD's area of expertise. Or the author may realize that a more suitable AD exists. Legitimate search for the right AD should not be confused with authors going through several ADs trying to find one that will sponsor their document. For BOF requests, this practice has been termed "AD shopping." To identify cases of AD shopping, it is recommended that ADs send a brief note to the IESG when they have turned down a sponsoring request, accompanied by an indication if this was due to unsuitable Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 8] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 topic for the AD or some other reason. This allows the other ADs to recognize that they are being asked for the same document again. This should not necessarily cause the second AD to automatically turn down the request. However, it is recommended that he query the ADs that have turned down sponsorship in the past and incorporate this information into his decision. 6. Discussion AD Sponsored submissions represent a significant workload to the IESG. Reasons for this popularity include the interest of the ADs to progress work in their fields, the difference in time-to-RFC- publication IETF documents enjoy over RFC Editor submissions, the ability to avoid the IESG notes that RFC Editor submissions get, and the wider review IETF documents get. However, improvements in the efficiency of the RFC Editor processing are likely to increase the popularity of the RFC Editor submissions, which represent a smaller load for the IESG. Similarly, ongoing work [I-D.klensin-rfc-independent] may change the tone of the IESG notes. In any case, the IESG can handle some amount of sponsored documents. The system is self-regulating in the sense that if the IESG becomes too busy, the ADs are less likely to adopt sponsored documents; there is no requirement for them to sponsor any submissions. The interesting question is why there was no WG to deal with the issue in the proposal, if it is so important and useful. One reason for this can be that our BoF process tends works better for large efforts than small. The process also favors focused efforts which may make it hard to report issues that cross multiple WGs or areas. Running a BoF and creating a WG takes time and requires a significant number of persons to be involved in the effort. Some of the situations where this can be problematic include: o Corrections and small updates of existing RFCs when the WG that created the original RFCs no longer exists. o Draft Standard revisions of Proposed Standard RFCs when the WG no longer exists. o IANA considerations updates for old protocol specifications to bring them up to today's requirements. Many old protocol specifications had no IANA considerations, for instance. o Architectural issues that cross multiple WGs or areas. Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 9] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 o Registration of values and formats in frameworks, such as media type registrations. Some areas employ area-specific WGs that can be used to process some of these. For instance, TSVWG in the Transport area produces documents as a real WG, resulting in less need for AD sponsoring. Other areas such as Internet and Security have area-specific discussion forums that do not act like WGs. The Routing area employs both models with their RTGAREA group for discussion and RTGWG for WG- like operation for "catchall" documents. 7. Summary of Changes to Existing Procedures The "talk to the appropriate AD" and "submit via RFC Editor" approaches are promoted over submitting documents via the secretariat. This allows the ADs to discuss the appropriate submission method with the authors, and does not require the secretariat to think about policy issues such as whether a document is worthwhile for being sponsored. Submissions sent to iesg@ietf.org are not considered. New text is adopted for the secretariat's response to submissions. It should also be noted that Section 4.2.3 of RFC 2026 states "Unless they are the result of IETF Working Group action, documents intended to be published with Experimental or Informational status should be submitted directly to the RFC Editor." This has not been operational practise for some time, however. A number of Informational and Experimental documents have been submitted as AD Sponsored documents. The rationale behind this is the wider review that can be achieved, but this is one area where current procedures have deviated from RFC 2026. 8. Security Considerations There are no security considerations beyond those normally involved in the IETF processing of proposals for new RFCs. 9. IANA Considerations There are no IANA considerations. 10. References Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 10] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 10.1. Normative References [RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2434] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 2434, October 1998. [RFC3932] Alvestrand, H., "The IESG and RFC Editor Documents: Procedures", BCP 92, RFC 3932, October 2004. [I-D.ietf-proto-wgchair-doc-shepherding] Levkowetz, H., "Document Shepherding From Working Group Last Call to IESG Approval", draft-ietf-proto-wgchair-doc-shepherding-07 (work in progress), June 2006. 10.2. Informative References [RFC3967] Bush, R. and T. Narten, "Clarifying when Standards Track Documents may Refer Normatively to Documents at a Lower Level", BCP 97, RFC 3967, December 2004. [I-D.iab-rfc-editor] Daigle, L., "The RFC Series and RFC Editor", draft-iab-rfc-editor-01 (work in progress), July 2006. [I-D.klensin-rfc-independent] Klensin, J., "Independent Submissions to the RFC Editor", draft-klensin-rfc-independent-02 (work in progress), May 2006. Appendix A. Acknowledgements This note has been prepared as a result of discussions in the IESG. The members of the IESG at the time this was written were: Bill Fenner Brian Carpenter Cullen Jennings Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 11] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 Dan Romascanu David Kessens Jari Arkko Jon Peterson Lars Eggert Lisa Dusseault Magnus Westerlund Mark Townsley Ross Callon Russ Housley Sam Hartman Ted Hardie In addition, the editor would like to thank Leslie Daigle for input. Appendix B. PROTO Write-Up The following write-up should accompany any request for sponsoring. The write-up is a modified version of the WG chair proto write-up in [I-D.ietf-proto-wgchair-doc-shepherding]. (1.a) Has the document had adequate review both from key community members and technical experts? Does the submitting author have any concerns about the depth or breadth of the reviews that have been performed? (1.b) Does the submitting author have concerns that the document needs more review from a particular or broader perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, someone familiar with AAA, internationalization or XML? (1.c) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a separate email because this questionnaire will be entered into the ID Tracker.) Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 12] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 (1.d) Has the submitting author verified that the document satisfies all ID nits? (See http://www.ietf.org/ID-Checklist.html and http://tools.ietf.org/tools/idnits/). Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be thorough. (1.e) Has the document split its references into normative and informative? Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative references exist, what is the strategy for their completion? Are there normative references that are downward references, as described in [RFC3967]? If so, list these downward references to support the Area Director in the Last Call procedure for them [RFC3967]. (1.f) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement Write-Up. Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent examples can be found in the "Action" announcements for approved documents. The approval announcement contains the following sections: Technical Summary Relevant content can frequently be found in the abstract and/or introduction of the document. If not, this may be an indication that there are deficiencies in the abstract or introduction. Working Group Summary Indicate the community and/or individuals that this submission comes from. Was this proposal discussed in any public forum, and was there anything in that discussion that is worth noting? For example, was there controversy about particular points? Document Quality Are there existing implementations of the protocol? Have a significant number of vendors indicated their plan to implement the specification? Are there any reviewers that merit special mention as having done a thorough review, e.g., one that resulted in important changes or a conclusion that the document had no substantive issues? The write-up is entered into the ID Tracker in the "Comment" field. Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 13] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 Author's Address Jari Arkko Ericsson Jorvas 02420 Finland Email: jari.arkko@ericsson.com Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 14] Internet-Draft AD Sponsoring Guidelines October 2006 Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 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The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is provided by the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA). Arkko (Editor) Expires April 19, 2007 [Page 15]