Network Working Group P. Hoffman Internet-Draft VPN Consortium Updates: 6292 (if approved) September 7, 2011 Intended status: Informational Expires: March 10, 2012 Requirements for a Working Group Milestones Tool draft-ietf-genarea-milestones-tool-05 Abstract The IETF intends to provide a new tool to Working Group chairs and Area Directors for the creation and updating of milestones for Working Group charters. This document describes the requirements for the proposed new tool, and it is intended as input to a later activity for the design and development of such a tool. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 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." This Internet-Draft will expire on March 10, 2012. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as Hoffman Expires March 10, 2012 [Page 1] Internet-Draft WG Milestones Tool Reqs September 2011 described in the Simplified BSD License. 1. Introduction [RFC2418] describes the guidelines and procedures for operation of IETF Working Groups (WGs). Every WG has milestones that the WG is supposed to meet, such as the publication of a particular Internet- Draft or the beginning of discussion on a particular topic. A WG's charter has several parts, with one of those parts is the milestones. Changing milestones currently requires Area Director (AD) approval, but changing the charter text requires IESG approval. Today, the tasks associated with creating and updating WG milestones are performed manually. Normally, WG chairs send email to their AD requesting that milestones be created or updated, or saying that one or more milestone has been met. These messages used to come as part of charter creation or updating, but will be a separate tool after the requirements in this document and in [RFC6292] are met. WG chairs sometimes send mail directly to the IETF Secretariat to make a change to the database of milestones, such as to change the dates for milestones or to say that they are completed. When a WG chair sends email to the Secretariat, the Secretariat must obtain the approval of the AD before taking the requested action. In early 2011, the IETF approved a set of requirements for a tool that helps ADs with the WG chartering and rechartering process [RFC6292]. During the IESG discussion of that document, it became clear that everyone wanted more automation to the milestones process. This document is intended to bring that discussion to a general consensus among WG chairs and ADs for the requirements for the eventual tool. The IAOC would like to create a better tool for the tasks of WG milestone creation and updating, and this document lists the requirements for such a tool. When complete, this document may be used to issue an RFP for the design and development of the tool. This document was prepared at the request of the IAOC. 2. Users of the Tool This tool can only be used by WG chairs and ADs, not by other members of the IETF community. The tool will use the login and access control features that will already be in place from the outcome of the tool created by [RFC6292]. It is important to note that some people are chairs for more than one WG, and everyone must be able to use the tool for all of the WGs that they chair. Hoffman Expires March 10, 2012 [Page 2] Internet-Draft WG Milestones Tool Reqs September 2011 Any AD can add or update any milestone for any WG. Normally, an AD would only add or update milestones in the WGs for which they are the responsible AD, but ADs are not bound by such a limitation. (This is the same model used in the Datatracker for other actions: it allows one AD to carry the load for an AD who is temporarily unable to perform such tasks.) WG chairs can only add or update milestones for WGs of which they are chairs. The IETF Secretariat needs to be able to perform the same tasks as the WG chairs and ADs in order to fix problems or to make emergency changes. The database will record the date and person who initiates any addition of, or change to, a milestone. The contents of the database will be visible to the IETF community so that anyone can see who made a particular change to a milestone. 3. Updating, Adding, and Deleting Milestones A WG chair needs to see all of the milestones for that chair's WG in the tool. The chair needs to be able to edit any milestone record for that chair's WG. In each existing record, the chair needs to be able to edit the due date, the finished date, the associated Internet-Drafts, and the description of the milestone. The chair also needs to be able to delete existing milestones. A WG chair needs to be able to add one or more milestone records to the database for their WG. The chair needs to be able to specify the due date, zero or more associated Internet-Drafts, and the description of the record that he or she is adding. A WG chair also needs to be able to delete one or more existing milestones. 4. Acceptance of Milestone Additions and Changes There are six actions associated with adding and changing milestones: o create new milestones o delete milestones o change milestone descriptions o change milestone due dates o change which Internet-Drafts are associated with a milestone Hoffman Expires March 10, 2012 [Page 3] Internet-Draft WG Milestones Tool Reqs September 2011 o assert that a milestone is completed WG chairs can change milestone due dates, change which Internet- Drafts are associated with a milestone, and can assert that a milestone is completed, for their WG. When any of these three actions are taken in the Datatracker, an email notification is sent to the AD for the WG as well as to the WG's chairs; the changes are reflected immediately in the Datatracker without any need for approval from an AD. WG chairs can also create new milestones, delete milestones, and change milestone descriptions; however, any of these action are not reflected in the Datatracker until the action is approved by an AD. When a WG chair makes the proposed change, an email notification is sent to the AD for the WG as well as to the WG's chairs. As noted in Section 2, any AD can take any of these six actions. The Secretariat should be able to take any of these actions as well. When adding or editing a milestone, the AD or WG Chair must be able to review and change the proposed change before committing the change to the Datatracker. This will help prevent errors and reduce the number of fixes that need to be made. Once a day, the Datatracker will look for changes to the milestones for a WG. If changes to milestones have been made in the past 24 hours, the Datatracker will send one message to the WG listing all the changes from that period. After this tool is launched, the IETF Secretariat will no longer need to post a change to the database: the tool will do this without intervention by the Secretariat. 5. Mapping Milestones to Internet-Drafts There is currently no mechanism to map WG milestones to Internet- Drafts. While most milestones map one-to-one with Internet-Drafts, some milestones do not map to any Internet-Draft (such as those that say when a general discussion will begin or finish), and other milestones map to multiple Internet-Drafts (such as a milestone that covers a topic that has multiple related Internet-Drafts). Some Internet-Drafts are part of more than one milestone. The new tool is required to make mappings between milestones and Internet-Drafts explicit, and those drafts must be listed in views of the milestone. This change will require a change to the Datatracker database to make such an association. Hoffman Expires March 10, 2012 [Page 4] Internet-Draft WG Milestones Tool Reqs September 2011 When an Internet-Draft that is mapped to a milestone changes its state to "Submitted to IESG for Publication" as described in [RFC6174], the tool will send a message to the WG chairs to remind them that they might want to update the milestone. Note that this message will not apply to all Internet-Drafts that are mapped to a milestone, so it is up to the WG chairs to decide what to do when such a message is received. 6. Reminders for WG Chairs and ADs Milestone changes that do not require AD approval are made immediately. Requested changes that require AD approval are tracked by the tool. If the AD has not approved or rejected the change within a week, email listing the request and the request date is sent to the WG chairs and AD. That email is sent every week until the AD has approved or rejected the request; the WG chairs are CC'd on this mail. The tool will also send WG chairs reminders about pending milestones. A message is sent when a milestone is one month from being due, at the time a milestone is due, and every month in which a milestone is overdue. The tool will also send WG chairs reminders about Internet-Drafts that are mapped to milestones. A message is sent when such a draft is one month from expiring, and at the time that a draft expires. If a milestone is mapped to a draft that is expired, mail reminding the chairs of this will be sent weekly. When a WG chair makes an Internet-Draft a WG work item, the Datatracker will remind them that they may want to also add that document to a milestone. The Datatracker needs to have a method for ADs and the Secretariat to see all the milestones that are pending approval. 7. Viewing Changes in Milestones Section 5 of [RFC6293] describes an extension to the Datatracker to allow the IETF community to view, search, and track changes to WG charters. This document updates those requirements to allow the IETF community to view, search, and track changes to WG milestones. Section 5.1 of [RFC6292] is updated to allow searching for any text in a milestone's description, as well as for the name of any Internet-Draft name that is mapped to any milestone. Hoffman Expires March 10, 2012 [Page 5] Internet-Draft WG Milestones Tool Reqs September 2011 A new capability will be added to the Datatracker that is similar to that described in Section 5.2 of [RFC6292], but instead of showing differences between charters, it shows differences between the full set of milestones. Any time a milestone is added, deleted, or any of its fields changed, the full set of milestones is considered changed. Someone should be able to easily compare two full sets of milestones. They should also be able to see two more full sets of milestones with the differences highlighted. The tool should show who made each change when changes are viewed. These features should be found in the same place as the features described in Section 5.2 of [RFC6292]. The tool needs to provide an Atom feed [RFC4287] for the changes in the milestones for a WG. The contents of the feed are the full WG record, plus an indication of what changed since the last entry in the feed and who made the change. This feed is different than the feed described in Section 5.3 of [RFC6292], but it should be offered to users in the same places as that feed is offered. When a milestone is marked as completed, the Datatracker will display the month and year that it was completed. 8. IANA Considerations None. [[ ...and thus this section can be removed before publication as an RFC... ]] 9. Security Considerations Creating a new tool for updating the milestones of WGs does not affect the security of the Internet in any significant fashion. 10. Acknowledgements This document draws heavily on ideas from various WG chairs and ADs on the wgchairs@ietf.org mailing list. 11. References 11.1. Normative References [RFC2418] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998. [RFC6174] Juskevicius, E., "Definition of IETF Working Group Hoffman Expires March 10, 2012 [Page 6] Internet-Draft WG Milestones Tool Reqs September 2011 Document States", RFC 6174, March 2011. [RFC6293] Hoffman, P., "Requirements for Internet-Draft Tracking by the IETF Community in the Datatracker", RFC 6293, June 2011. 11.2. Informative References [RFC4287] Nottingham, M., Ed. and R. Sayre, Ed., "The Atom Syndication Format", RFC 4287, December 2005. [RFC6292] Hoffman, P., "Requirements for a Working Group Charter Tool", RFC 6292, June 2011. Author's Address Paul Hoffman VPN Consortium Email: paul.hoffman@vpnc.org Hoffman Expires March 10, 2012 [Page 7]