Network Working Group H. Alvestrand
Internet-Draft Cisco Systems
Expires: August 21, 2006 February 17, 2006
IETF Process and Operations Documentss
draft-alvestrand-ipod-00
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Abstract
This document describes a new document series intended for use as a
repository for IETF process and operations documents, which should be
more ephemeral than RFCs, but more referenceable than internet-
drafts, and with more clear handling procedures than a random Web
page.
It proposes to establish this series as an RFC 3933 process
experiment.
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Comments should be sent to the author, or to the IETF list:
ietf@ietf.org.
Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. A description of the IPOD mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Properties of an IPOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. IPOD approval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Draft IPODs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4. The IPOD Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Proposed initial IPODs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Success criteria and sunset period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Background and motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 11
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1. Introduction
This document describes a new document series, called the IETF
Process and Operations Documents, or IPODs.
This document series is intended to capture the set of procedures
that the IETF follows, but for which the RFC process is an
inappropriate documentation veichle.
The document series is a process experiment according to RFC 3933
[RFC3933]
2. A description of the IPOD mechanism
2.1. Properties of an IPOD
An IPOD is a document with a certain set of attributes ("front page
matter"). This specification does not place any limits on what else
an IPOD can contain.
An IPOD has the following attributes:
o A name, which is usable as the filename of the document
o A title
o A date of approval
o An identification of the body that approved this version
The format of the document is not restricted by this document. It's
suggested that there be an IPOD that describe expectations for IPODs.
An IPOD is a versioned document. When a new IPOD is issued with the
same name, it obsoletes the previous version. When one desires to
retire an IPOD, one issues an IPOD saying "This document name is now
obsolete".
The IPOD name + the approval date forms a stable identifier for one
particular version of an IPOD; once it is published, it shall never
be changed, although it may be withdrawn (see below).
2.2. IPOD approval
An IPOD is always approved by some body. This document suggests that
the IESG be given supreme authority over the IPOD mechanism, subject
to appeal, but encourages the IESG to share the right to approve
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IPODs with other bodies.
The IESG is responsible for approving the document that gives the
list of current IPOD approvers. An initial set of IPOD approvers may
be the IESG, the IAB, the IAOC and the IAD.
An updated IPOD will normally be approved by the same body that
approved the previous version, or by another body with the approval
of the previoiusly-approving body. In case of conflict, or when the
previous body no longer exists.
A decision by any other body than the IESG to publish an IPOD can be
appealed to the IESG, in which case the IESG can nullify the
approval. A decision of the IESG can be appealed using the common
IETF appeals procedure, except that an IESG decision to nullify an
IAB decision to publish an IPOD cannot be appealed to the IAB.
(extreme boilerplate) In the case that the IESG ceases to exist, its
successors or assigns will take over the tasks given to the IESG in
this document.
2.3. Draft IPODs
There is no requirement that an IPOD will be published as a draft
before publication. This will, however, be desirable in many cases,
and thus, this document describes the properties and procedures for
handling draft IPODs.
Draft IPODs shall have, instead of an approval date and an
identification of the body that approved it, information about:
o The word "DRAFT", prominently displayed
o The publication date and time
o The approval date of the document it is intended to update (if
any)
o The body that is intended to approve this version
o The appropriate forum for discussion of this draft (if any)
2.4. The IPOD Store
All approved IPODs are archived, in all their versions, and made
publicly available from resources operated by the IETF secretariat.
The store should be reachable by common methods like World Wide Web
and FTP, and should offer both easy access to the "current" version
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of all IPODs and bulk download of all IPODs, all versions.
This document does not constrain the form of the IPOD Store, but
mandates that there be a public one.
Public draft IPODs are published separately from the approved IPODs.
Old versions MAY be published in the draft store, but all drafts will
be deleted from it when the document is approved.
3. Proposed initial IPODs
The following IPODs should be created as soon as possible after this
document is published, to give the details of the maintenance of the
IPOD series, in order to bootstrap the process:
o The IPOD Format Guide
o The IPOD Store Description
o The list of IPOD approvers
The following list of documents, some of which currently exist, are
examples of documents that could be converted to IPODs. This is not
a binding recommendation, but gives examples of what IPODs can be
good for.
o The I-D publishing procedure
o The checklist for I-D submission to the IESG (formerly known as
id-nits)
o Procedures for spam control on IETF mailing lists
o Procedures for requesting a WG meeting slot
o Procedures for IETF minutes
o Procedures for IESG meeting minutes
The existence of the IPOD series may cause the following documents to
be split into a "policy and principles" BCP and a "procedures and
boilerplate" document published as IPOD:
o IETF Rights in Documents (currently BCP 78)RFC3978 [RFC3978]
o IETF Rights in Technology (currently BCP 79)RFC3979 [RFC3979]
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o IETF mailing list management (currently RFC3005 [RFC3005], BCP 45,
RFC3683 [RFC3683], BCP 83, and RFC3934 [RFC3934], BCP 94)
4. Success criteria and sunset period
This experiment is expected to run for a period of 12 months,
starting from the date of the first IPOD published using this
mechanism. At the end of the period, the IESG should issue a call
for comments from the community, asking for people to state their
agreement to one of the following statements:
1. This document series has proved useful, and should be made
permanent
2. This document series is less useful than the equivalent
information in RFCs and informal Web pages, and should be
abandoned
3. We cannot decide yet; the experiment should continue
The author believes that establishing objective metrics for the
success or failure of this experiment is not a worthwhile exercise;
the success or failure will be readily apparent in the community's
attitudes towards the series.
If the feedback reveals a community consensus for keeping the series,
the IESG may choose to create a new BCP RFC containing the
information herein, suitably modified by experience.
5. Background and motivation
This section may be deleted from the final document, if that is
useful. It serves mainly as a primer for discussions about the
doucment.
The IETF is an open organization, which means (among other things)
that there are always newcomers coming in to learn how to perform
work; this places a requirement on the organization to document its
processes and procedures in an accessible manner.
The IETF is also a large organization, which means that when
procedures change, there are a number of people who will like to know
of the change, to figure out what has changed, and possibly to
protest or appeal the change if they disagree with it.
At the present time (spring 2006), there are three kinds of documents
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used for IETF documentation of its operations and procedures:
o BCP and Info RFCs, which require an IETF consensus call for BCP,
approval by the IESG, and usually a great deal of debate and
effort to change, and which bind up editing resources in the final
edit stage, as well as being limited (in practice) to ASCII. The
BCP number forms a means of having a stable reference for new
versions of a document, but this mechanism is not available for
Info documents; "updates/obsoletes" links can give some of the
same information, but can also be quite confusing to follow.
o Web pages, which can be changed without notice, provide very
little ability to track changes, and have no formal standing -
confusion is often seen about who has the right to update them,
what the process for updating them is, and so on. It is hard when
looking at a web page to see whether this is a current procedure,
a procedure introduced and abandoned, or a draft of a future
procedure.
o "floating" internet-drafts, which are frequently updated, in a
trackable manner, but have no approval mechanism, are limited (in
practice) to ASCII format, and whose use as semi-permanent
documents clutters up their use as 6-month temporary working
documents.
This note introduces a new series that seems to fulfil the
requirements for "something in between":
o Unlike RFCs, they can be produced without a post-editing stage,
they can be in any format the controllers of the series choose
(allowing web pages with hyperlinks, which is an advantage for
newcomers).
o Also unlike RFCs, they can be produced by any body that the IESG
gives the right to use the mechanism; this allows certain
procedures to be updated without having to wait for the IESG
approval cycle.
o Unlike internet-drafts, they have an explicit approval step - this
allows a reader to easily see the difference between an idea and
an operational procedure.
o Unlike Web pages, there is an explicit mechanism for finding "all
current versions", and a mechanism for tracking the history of a
document.
The "author" attribute has quite deliberately been omitted from the
required property list. While there may be many cases where
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identifying an author is a Good Thing, the responsibility for an
approved IPOD rests with the approving body.
Note: This proposal is NOT intended to affect the standars track in
any way - a side effect may be to reduce the number of "process BCPs"
emitted, but this has no direct bearing on the IETF's technical
specifications. It is therefore not within the scope of the NEWTRK
working group.
6. IANA Considerations
This document makes no request of IANA.
Note to RFC Editor: this section may be removed on publication as an
RFC.
7. Security Considerations
Given that IPOD is a trademark registered in the categories IC 009,
010 016, 020, 025, 035, 039, 041 and US 001 002 005 007 019 021 022
023 026 029 032 036 037 038 039 042 044 050 100, 101 102 105 and 107,
a better name for the document series might be IETF Policy and
Operations Notes.
8. Acknowledgements
Many people have contributed over the years to the ideas that I have
tried to express here.
I'm in particular indebted to John Klensin for his work on trying to
find a balance between formalism and flexibility in the IETF process,
and for his earlier attempts at creating such a document series as an
adjunct to the "ISD" effort (draft-klensin-std-repurposing).
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3933] Klensin, J. and S. Dawkins, "A Model for IETF Process
Experiments", BCP 93, RFC 3933, November 2004.
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9.2. Informative References
[RFC3005] Harris, S., "IETF Discussion List Charter", BCP 45,
RFC 3005, November 2000.
[RFC3683] Rose, M., "A Practice for Revoking Posting Rights to IETF
mailing lists", BCP 83, RFC 3683, February 2004.
[RFC3934] Wasserman, M., "Updates to RFC 2418 Regarding the
Management of IETF Mailing Lists", BCP 94, RFC 3934,
October 2004.
[RFC3978] Bradner, S., "IETF Rights in Contributions", BCP 78,
RFC 3978, March 2005.
[RFC3979] Bradner, S., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF
Technology", BCP 79, RFC 3979, March 2005.
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Author's Address
Harald Tveit Alvestrand
Cisco Systems
Email: harald@alvestrand.no
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