Network Working Group A. Falk Internet-Draft IRTF Chair Intended status: Informational September 22, 2008 Expires: March 26, 2009 Definition of an Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Document Stream draft-irtf-rfcs-03.txt 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 March 26, 2009. Abstract This memo defines the publication stream for RFCs from the Internet Research Task Force. Most documents undergoing this process will come from IRTF Research Groups and it is expected that they will be published as Informational or Experimental RFCs by the RFC Editor. 1. Changes from Last Version (to be removed) Updates from draft-irtf-rfcs-02.txt Falk Expires March 26, 2009 [Page 1] Internet-Draft IRTF RFCs September 2008 o Changed category to Informational o Added citation to RFC3978 (BCP78) in derivative rights discussion o Fixed typos Updates from draft-irtf-rfcs-01.txt: o Removed internal process description not needed for stream definition (added to wiki) o IESG review text now points to draft-housely-rfc3932bis o Replaced proposed IESG notes with pointer to draft-iab-streams-headers-boilerplate o Added recommendation to permit unlimited derivative rights 2. Introduction From time to time the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) [RFC2014] will wish to publish a document in the Internet RFC series. This memo defines the steps required to publish a document in the IRTF RFC stream. Document streams are described in Section 5 of [RFC4844]. Most documents undergoing this process will come from IRTF Research Groups and it is expected that they will be published as Informational or Experimental RFCs by the RFC Editor. The IRTF RFC stream provides an avenue for research groups to publish their findings with an IRTF label. Pre-publication editorial review by the Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG) increases the readibility of documents and ensures proper caveats (described in Section 3.1) are applied. The IRTF RFC approval process may be summarized as: o The Research Group (RG) performs a thorough technical and editorial review of the document and agrees it should be published. o The Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG) reviews the document and approves it for publication. o The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) reviews the document to assure that there are no conflicts with current or expected standardization activities. Falk Expires March 26, 2009 [Page 2] Internet-Draft IRTF RFCs September 2008 o The document is submitted to the RFC Editor for publication. This draft has been updated based on over a year of experience and processing of roughly a dozen documents. The IRTF concludes that there has been sufficient experience to justify the benefits and process are sound. 3. Approval Process The following sections describe the steps for IRTF-stream document review and publication process. There are fundamentally two steps: IRSG review and IESG review. The document shepherd is responsible for making sure reviews are responded to and documented and that the process moves along. 3.1. Research Group Preparation If an IRTF Research Group desires to publish a document as an IRTF RFC, the process in this document must be followed. First, the RG must review the document for editorial and technical quality. The following guidelines should be adhered to: o There must be a statement in the abstract identifying it as the product of the RG o There must be a paragraph near the beginning (for example, in the introduction) describing the level of support for publication. Example text might read: "this document represents the consensus of the FOOBAR RG" or "the views in this document were considered controversial by the FOOBAR RG but the RG reached a consensus that the document should still be published". o The breadth of review the document has received must also be noted. For example, was this document read by all the active research group members, only three people, or folks who are not "in" the RG but are expert in the area? o It must also be very clear throughout the document that it is not an IETF product and is not a standard. o If an experimental protocol is described, appropriate usage caveats must be present. o If the protocol has been considered in an IETF working group in the past, this must be noted in the introduction as well. Falk Expires March 26, 2009 [Page 3] Internet-Draft IRTF RFCs September 2008 o There should be citations and references to relevant research publications. The Research Group identifies a document shepherd whose responsibilty is to track and facilitate document progression through RFC publication. The shepherd should be copied on all correspondence relating to the document. 3.2. IRSG Review and Approval The IRSG functions similar to an editorial review board. It is the IRSG's responsibility to ensure high technical and editorial quality. The IRSG will review and approve all documents intended for the IRTF RFC stream. The purpose of the IRSG review is to ensure consistent technical clarity and editorial quality for IRTF publications. IRSG review is not a deep technical review. (This should take place within the RG.) At least one IRSG member who is not a chair of that research group must review the document and the RG's editorial process. IRSG reviewers should look for clear, cogent, and consistent writing. An important aspect of the review is to gain a critical reading from reviewers who are not subject matter experts and, in the process, assure the document will be accessible to those beyond the authoring research group. Also, reviewers should assess whether sufficient editorial and technical review has been conducted within the RG and the requirements of this process document have been met, for example reviewers should evaluate whether the breadth of review the document has received is adequate for the material at hand. Finally, reviewers should check that appropriate citations to related research literature have been made. Reviews should be written to be public. Review comments should be sent to the IRSG and RG mailing lists and entered into the IRTF's document tracker. All IRSG review comments must be addressed. However, the RG need not accept every comment. It is the responsibility of the shepherd to understand the comments and ensure that the RG considers them including adequate dialog between the reviewer and the author and/or RG. Following resolution of the editorial review, the IRSG will make a decision as to whether to approve the document for publication. If the IRSG does not approve the document, it returns to the research group with feedback on what would need to be fixed for publication. In rare cases the IRSG may determine that a document is not suitable for publication as an IRTF RFC. (For example, members of the RG may assert to the IRSG that there was no RG consensus to publish the Falk Expires March 26, 2009 [Page 4] Internet-Draft IRTF RFCs September 2008 document.) Other publication streams would still be available to those authors. 3.3. IESG Review The IRTF Chair will then extend the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) an opportunity to review the document according to the process and scope described in [I-D.housley-iesg-rfc3932bis]. The scope of this review is confined to that described in [RFC2026], section 4.2.3, for non-IETF documents, specifically it is "to ensure that the non-standards track Experimental and Informational designations are not misused to circumvent the Internet Standards Process." The IESG (via the IETF Secretariat) is expected to provide the IRTF chair with a response, normally within four weeks, as to whether publication of the draft is perceived to be at odds with the Internet Standards Process. The IESG may recommend against publication. Should this occur, the RG may choose to revise the document based on the comments accompanying this recommendation and pass a revised version to the IESG. If the RG and IESG cannot come to agreement publishing the document, the RG chair may ask the IRTF Chair to raise the matter with the IAB, which will act as final arbiter on whether the document is submitted to the RFC Editor (along with the commentary and recommendation from the IESG, to inform the RFC Editor in its publishing decision). 3.4. RFC Editor Handling The IRTF Chair will then ask the RFC Editor to publish the document, after which it will be enqueued for publication. The document enters the RFC Editor queue at the same priority as non- standard IETF-stream and IAB-stream documents. The document shepherd is responsible for ensuring that the document authors are responsive to the RFC Editor and that the RFC editing process goes smoothly. The AUTH48 review stage of RFC publication is an area where the shepherd may be of particular assistance, ensuring a) authors respond promptly in reviewing about-to-be-published RFCs and b) authors don't inject changes into the document at the last minute which would not be supported by the research group or other reviewers. If not already present, the RFC Editor will insert labels and text for the "Status of this Memo" section that identify the document as the product of the IRTF. The specific text is defined in [I-D.iab-streams-headers-boilerplates]. Falk Expires March 26, 2009 [Page 5] Internet-Draft IRTF RFCs September 2008 3.5. Intellectual Property IRTF documents should include a derivative rights statement, as described in [RFC3978] Section 4.2 a. (C), where the authors grant unlimited permission for derivative works with appropriate credits and citations (i.e., excluding the limitations set forth in Section 5.2). This is because research within the IRTF is intended to have broad impact and would be encouraged by avoiding limitations on the use of the documents. Also, it is currently the common case for non- IETF RFCs. 4. IAB Statement In its capacity as the body that approves the creation of document streams (see [RFC4844]), the IAB has reviewed this proposal and supports it as an operational change that is in line with the respective roles of the IRTF, IESG and RFC Editor. 5. IANA Considerations This document makes no request of IANA. Note to RFC Editor: this section may be removed on publication as an RFC. 6. Security Considerations There are no security considerations in this document. 7. Acknowledgements This document was developed in close collaboration with the Internet Research Steering Group (IRSG), see Appendix A for membership. Useful contributions were made by Mark Allman, Bob Braden, Brian Carpenter, Leslie Daigle, Stephen Farrell, Tom Henderson, Rajeev Koodli, Danny McPherson, Allison Mankin, Craig Partridge, Juergen Schoenwaelder, Karen Sollins, and Mark Townsley who contributed to development of the process defined in this document. 8. Informative References [I-D.housley-iesg-rfc3932bis] Alvestrand, H. and R. Housley, "IESG Procedures for Falk Expires March 26, 2009 [Page 6] Internet-Draft IRTF RFCs September 2008 Handling of Independent and IRTF Stream Submissions", draft-housley-iesg-rfc3932bis-02 (work in progress), September 2008. [I-D.iab-streams-headers-boilerplates] Daigle, L. and O. Kolkman, "On RFC Streams Headers and Boilerplates", draft-iab-streams-headers-boilerplates-00 (work in progress), June 2008. [RFC2014] Weinrib, A. and J. Postel, "IRTF Research Group Guidelines and Procedures", BCP 8, RFC 2014, October 1996. [RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. [RFC3978] Bradner, S., "IETF Rights in Contributions", BCP 78, RFC 3978, March 2005. [RFC4844] Daigle, L. and Internet Architecture Board, "The RFC Series and RFC Editor", RFC 4844, July 2007. Appendix A. Internet Research Steering Group membership IRSG members at the time of this writing: Bill Arbaugh, MOBOPTS RG; Bob Braden; John Buford, SAM RG; Ran Canetti, CFRG; Leslie Daigle; Wes Eddy, ICCRG; Aaron Falk, IRTF Chair; Kevin Fall, DTN RG; Stephen Farrell, DTN RG; Sally Floyd, TMRG; Andrei Gurtov, HIPRG; Tom Henderson, HIPRG; Rajeev Koodli, MOBOPTS RG; Olaf Kolkman, IAB Chair; John Levine, ASRG; Tony Li, RRG; Dave McGrew, CFRG; Jeremy Mineweaser, SAM RG; Craig Partridge, E2E RG; Juergen Schoenwaelder, NMRG; Karen Sollins, E2E RG; Michael Welzl, ICCRG; John Wroclawski; Lixia Zhang, RRG Author's Address Aaron Falk BBN Technologies 10 Moulton Street Cambridge, MA 02138 USA Phone: +1-617-873-2575 Email: falk@bbn.com Falk Expires March 26, 2009 [Page 7] Internet-Draft IRTF RFCs September 2008 Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2008). 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, THE IETF TRUST 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. Intellectual Property The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights 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; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat 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 implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr. 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. Falk Expires March 26, 2009 [Page 8]