1. Summary
Murray Kucherawy is the document shepherd.
Jari Arkko is the responsible Area Director.
RFC 4858 talks about "Document Shepherding from Working Group Last
Call to Publication". There's a significant part of a document's
life that happens before working group last call, starting at the
time that a working group begins discussing a version of the idea
that's been posted as an individual draft. This document extends RFC
4858, discussing the potential for extending shepherding and what
tasks might be involved throughout a working group document's
lifecycle, from start to finish.
Informational status has been requested. As this does not impose new process,
does not declare an experiment, and does not introduce a new standards track
protocol, those other status options are not appropriate.
2. Review and Consensus
There was lively discussion of this work in 2012 when it was put through an
IETF Last Call in the GEN area after a period of review and feedback. One
point of contention was that the author wished to retain editorial control over
the content rather than ceding to consensus; the IESG at the time was fine with
publishing it with changes to the boilerplate to reflect this. There was
debate at that time about the handling of the document since it is the product
of one person and not of IETF Consensus — which would suggest the Independent
Stream — but because it makes suggestions about a potential IETF process
change, it was decided to process it as an Individual Submission. The
resulting discussion certainly reflected the confusion this caused, but there
was no clear path forward. As a result, it has sat in limbo since then.
I believe the document has had ample community review and, in fact, has had
some successful implementation in the Applications Area Working Group
(APPSAWG). It therefore seems to me that the content of the document is not in
question. The process question, however, is unresolved.
Given that this is merely the summation of some ideas around document
shepherding and does not rise to the level of BCP, I’m not sure either solution
is preferable, so we should just pick one and move it forward.
3. Intellectual Property
The author has affirmed to me that he knows of no IPR on the material in this
document that has not been declared as required by BCPs 78 and 79.
4. Other Points
Nothing of note.