Network Working Group O. Kolkman (Ed.)
Internet-Draft
Intended status: Informational J. Halpern (Ed.)
Expires: November 1, 2011 Ericsson
IAB
April 30, 2011
RFC Editor Model (Version 2)
draft-iab-rfc-editor-model-v2-01
Abstract
The RFC Editor performs a number of functions that may be carried out
by various persons or entities. The RFC Editor model described in
this document divides the responsibilities for the RFC Series into
four functions: The RFC Series Editor, the Independent Submission
Editor, the RFC Production Center, and the RFC Publisher. The
function of the Independent Submission Editor is defined here. The
IAB oversight by way of delegation to the RFC Series Oversight Board
is described. This document reflects 1 year of experience with RFC
Editor Model version 1.
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
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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 November 1, 2011.
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
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publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Administrative Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Expenses for the RFC Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. RFC Editor Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. RFC Series Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.1. Executive Management of the Publication and
Production function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.2. Representation of the RFC Series . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.2.1. Representation to the IETF . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.2.2. External Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1.3. Development of RFC Production and RFC Access . . . . . 10
3.1.4. Development of the RFC Series . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1.5. Workload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.1.6. Qualifications and Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2. Independent Submission Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3. RFC Production Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.4. RFC Publisher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4. Committees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1. RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC) . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1.1. RSOC composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.1.2. Disagreements Among RFC Editor Entities . . . . . . . 17
4.1.2.1. Issues with Contractual Impact . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.2. Independent Submission Stream Editorial Board . . . . . . 18
5. IANA considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6. Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Appendix A. Internet Draft editing details . . . . . . . . . . . 20
A.1. Section 00->01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
A.2. Section 01->02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
A.3. Section 02->03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
A.4. section 03->04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
A.5. section 04->05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
A.6. section 05->06 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
A.7. section 06->07 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A.8. section 07->08 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
A.9. v2-00->v2-01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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1. Introduction
The IAB, on behalf of the Internet technical community, is concerned
with ensuring the continuity of the RFC Series, orderly RFC Editor
succession, maintaining RFC quality, and RFC document accessibility.
The IAB is also sensitive to the concerns of the IETF Administrative
Oversight Committee (IAOC) about providing the necessary services in
a cost effective and efficient manner.
The definition of the RFC series is described in RFC 4844 [RFC4844].
Section 3.1 defines "RFC Editor":
| 3.1. RFC Editor
|
| Originally, there was a single person acting as editor of the RFC
| Series (the RFC Editor). The task has grown, and the work now
| requires the organized activity of several experts, so there are RFC
| Editors, or an RFC Editor organization. In time, there may be
| multiple organizations working together to undertake the work
| required by the RFC Series. For simplicity's sake, and without
| attempting to predict how the role might be subdivided among them,
| this document refers to this collection of experts and organizations
| as the "RFC Editor".
|
| The RFC Editor is an expert technical editor and series editor,
| acting to support the mission of the RFC Series. As such, the RFC
| Editor is the implementer handling the editorial management of the
| RFC Series, in accordance with the defined processes. In addition,
| the RFC Editor is expected to be the expert and prime mover in
| discussions about policies for editing, publishing, and archiving
| RFCs.
RFC 4844 makes no attempt to explore the internal organization of the
RFC Editor. However, RFC 4844 envisions changes in the RFC Editor
organizational structure. In discussion with the Internet community,
the IAB considered changes that increase flexibility and operational
support options, provides for the orderly succession of the RFC
Editor, and ensures the continuity of the RFC series, while
maintaining RFC quality, maintaining timely processing, ensuring
document accessibility, reducing costs, and increasing cost
transparency. The model set forth below is the result of those
discussions and the experience gained since, as described immediately
below, and examines the internal organization of the RFC Editor,
while remaining consistent with RFC 4844. This version of the
document also reflects the discussions, as described below, that have
occurred since the first efforts to clarify that internal
organization.
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Note that RFC 4844 uses the term "RFC Editor function" or "RFC
Editor" as the collective set of responsibilities for which this memo
provides a model for internal organization. This memo defines the
term "RFC Series Editor" or "Series Editor" for one of the
organizational components.
The RFC Editor model was first approved in October 1, 2008 and has
evolved since. During the implementation of version 1 of the model
[RFC5620] it was quickly realized that the role of the RSE and the
oversight responsibilities needed to be structured differently. In
order to gain experience with 'running code' a transitional RFC
Series Editor was hired who analyzed the managerial environment and
provided recommendations. This version of the model is based on his
recommendations and the subsequent discussion on the rfc-interest
list.
The document, and the resulting structures, will be modified as
needed through normal procedures. The RSE, and the IAB, through the
RFC oversight committee (see Section 4.1), will continue to monitor
discussions within the community about potential adjustments to the
RFC Editor model and recognizes that the process described in this
document may need to be adjusted to align with any changes that
result from such discussions, hence the version number in the title.
2. Administrative Implementation
The model is constructed in such a way that it sets boundary
conditions on whether these functions are to be implemented jointly
or under separate contractual arrangements. The exact implementation
is a responsibility of the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee
(IAOC, [RFC4071]) in cooperation with the RFC Series Editor.
2.1. Expenses for the RFC Editor
The expenses discussed in this document are not new expenses. They
have been and remain part of the IETF Administrative Support Activity
(IASA, [RFC4071]) budget.
3. RFC Editor Model
The RFC Editor model divides the responsibilities for the RFC Series
into the following components:
o RFC Series Editor ("RSE").
o Independent Submission Editor ("ISE").
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o RFC Production Center.
o RFC Publisher.
The structure and relationship of the components of the RFC Series
Production and Process is schematically represented by the figure
below (the picture does not depict oversight and escalation
relations).
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+--------------+
| |
| IAB |
| |
+----V--------V+
+.RFC Editor....|........V.................+
. | .
+------------+ . +-----------V-+ +-----------+ .
| | . | RFC | | | .
| Community | . | Series | | RFC | .
| at <------> Oversight <--> Series | .
| Large | . | Committee | | Editor | .
| | . | | | | .
+------------+ . +-------------+ +-V-------V-+ .
+...............+ | | .
. | | .
+-----------+ +-------------+ . +----V--+ +V--------+ . +-----+
| Community | | Independent | . | RFC | | | . | E |
| at +---> Submission +---> | | RFC | . | n |
| Large | | Editor | . | P | | | . | d |
| | | | . | r | | P | . | |
+-----------+ +-------------+ . | o +-->| u +-----> U |
+-----------+ +-------------+ . | d | | b | . | s |
| | | | . | u | | l | . | e |
| IAB +---> IAB +---> c | | i | . | r |
| | | | . | t | | s | . | s |
+-----------+ +-------------+ . | i | | h | . | |
+-----------+ +-------------+ . | o | | e | . | & |
| | | | . | n | | r | . | |
| IRTF +---> IRSG +---> | | | . | R |
| | | | . | C | | | . | e |
+-----------+ +-------------+ . | e | | | . | a |
+-----------+ +-------------+ . | n | | | . | d |
| | | | . | t | | | . | e |
| IETF +---> IESG +---> e | | | . | r |
| | | | . | r | | | . | s |
+-----------+ +-------------+ . +-------+ +---------+ . +-----+
. .
+..........................+
Structure of RFC Series production and process.
Figure 1
In this model documents are produced and approved through multiple
document streams. The four that now exist are described in
[RFC4844]. Documents from these streams are edited and processed by
the Production Center and published by the Publisher. The RFC Series
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Editor will exercise executive management over the activities of the
RFC Publisher and the RFC Production Center (which can be seen as
back office functions) and will be the entity that:
o Provides Executive Management for the overall operation of the RFC
Editor, including the Production and Publication components.
o Represents the RFC Series and the RFC Editor Function within the
IETF and externally.
o Is responsible for planning and seeing to the execution of
improvements in the RFC Editor Production and Access Processes.
o Leads the community in the development of improvements to the RFC
Series.
These responsibilities are defined below, although the specific work
items under them are a matter for the actual employment contract and
its Statement of Work.
The IAB and IAOC maintain their chartered responsibility as defined
in [RFC2850] and [RFC4071]. More details on the oversight by the IAB
via the RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC) can be found in
Section 4.1.
Therefore, the RSE does not have the direct authority to hire or fire
RFC Editor contractors or personnel. Serious issues, such as those
that might be detected during the RSE annual review of the production
facility, would be brought by the RSE to the RSOC, and escalated from
there if appropriate.
3.1. RFC Series Editor
The RFC Series Editor is the individual with overall responsibility
for the quality, continuity, and evolution of the RFC Series. While
that individual may, in the future, have assistants; at present there
are no staff other than those associated with the RFC Series
Production and Publication facility.
The RSE is appointed by the IAB, but formally hired by the IAOC. The
IAB delegates the direct oversight over the RSE to the RSOC, which it
appoints.
3.1.1. Executive Management of the Publication and Production function
With respect to the Publication and Production functions, the RSE
provides input to the IASA budget, statements of work, and manages
vendor selection processes. The RSE performs annual reviews of the
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Production and Publication function which are then provided to the
RSOC and the IASA.
Vendor selection is done in cooperation with the streams and under
final authority of the IASA.
Concretely:
o The RSE owns and develops the work definition (the SOW) and
manages the vendor search processes. The work definition is
created within the (budgetary) boundary condition that are
negotiated with IASA and takes into account the RSE's requirements
and community input.
o The RSE manages the evaluation process of the bids against the SOW
and then provides a recommendation to the IASA.
o Final vendor selection is done by the IASA in close consultation
with the RSE to ensure that contract terms and other arrangements
are consistent with the SOW, consistent with the both RSE's and
contractor's requirements to satisfy the contract.
The IASA has the responsibility to approve the total RSE budget (and
the authority to deny it). The RSE has the responsibility to manage
all the series functions within that budget. It is assumed that
there is a level of cooperation between RSE and IASA that allows
decisions by the IASA to be 'pro forma'. In case of disagreement,
the IAB will attempt to mediate the issue. If no mutual agreement
can be reached, the IAB will make the final decision.
When budgets have been assigned by IASA the RSE is responsible for
managing the RFC Editor to operate within those budgets. If
production needs change, the RSE is responsible for working with the
production facility to determine what the correct response should be.
If they agree that a budgetary change is needed, that needs to be
taken to the IAD and the IAOC.
The RSE primarily supervises the on-going performance of the vendors
without asserting direct operational responsibility. However, the
RSE has operational responsibilities for issues that raise above the
responsibilities of the publication or publication functions such as
cross stream coordination of priorities and other issues. When the
RSE needs to take extra-budgetary or out-of contract measures those
actions will be coordinated with IASA.
The RSE is also responsible for creating documentation and structures
that will allow for the RFC Series' continuity when circumstances
engender the need for the execution of the publication and/or
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production functions by other vendors.
For this type of responsibility the RSE is expected to cooperate
closely with the IASA and the various streams.
To prevent actual or apparent problems with conflicts of interest or
judgment, the RSE is barred from having any ownership, advisory, or
other relationship to the vendors executing the Publication or
Production functions except as specified elsewhere in this document.
If necessary, an exception can be made after public disclosure of
those relationships and with the explicit permission of the IAB and
IASA.
3.1.2. Representation of the RFC Series
The RSE is the primary representative of the RFC Series. This
representation is important both internally, relative to the IETF,
and externally.
3.1.2.1. Representation to the IETF
The RSE is the primary point of contact the IETF on matters other
than the practicalities of producing individual RFCs (which are
worked with the RFC Production staff.)
This includes providing suitable reports to the community at large;
providing email contact for policy questions and inputs; and enabling
and participating in suitable on-line forums for discussion of issues
related to the RFC Series.
Due to the history and nature of the interaction between the RSE and
the IETF, certain principles must be understood and adhered to by the
RSE in his or her interactions with the community. These apply to
the representation function, as well as to the leadership the RSE
provides in Production and Series Development.
3.1.2.1.1. Volunteerism
The vast majority of Internet technical community work is led,
initiated, and done by community volunteers, including oversight,
policy-making, and direct production of, for example, many software
tools. The Series Editor role relies on volunteer participation and
needs to support the vitality and effectiveness of volunteer
participation.
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3.1.2.1.2. Policy Authority
All decisions are to be made in the overall interest of the
community. The community is the arbiter of policy. The RSE must
consult with the community on policy issues. The RSE works with the
community to achieve policy that meets the overall quality,
continuity, and evolution goals the RSE is charged with meeting. As
described below in Section 4.1 the RSE reports the results of such
interactions to the RSOC, including the specific recommendations on
policy. This enables the RSOC to provide the oversight the IAB is
required to apply, as well as to confirm that the IETF community has
been properly consulted and considered in making policy.
3.1.2.2. External Representation
From time to time, individuals or organizations external to the IETF
need a contact person to talk to about the RFC Series. The RSE is
that individual.
Over time, the RSE should determine what if any means should be
employed to increase end-user awareness of the series, and to
reinforce the stature of the Series, and will be the contact point
for outside parties seeking information on the Series or the Editor.
3.1.3. Development of RFC Production and RFC Access
Closely related to providing executive management to the RFC
Production and Publication functions is the need to develop and
improve those functions. The RSE is responsible for ensuring that
such ongoing development takes place.
This effort must include the dimensions of document quality,
timeliness of production, and accessibility of results. It must also
specifically take into account issues raised by the IETF community.
3.1.4. Development of the RFC Series
In order to develop the RFC Publication series the RSE is expected to
develop a relationships with the Internet technical community. With
that community, the Editor is expected to engage in a process of
articulating and refining a vision for the Series and its continuous
evolution.
Concretely:
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The RSE is responsible for the coordination of discussion on
Series evolution among the Series' Stream participants and the
broader Internet technical community.
In time the RSE is expected to develop and refine a vision for the
RFC Series, including examining:
the technical specification series, as it continues to evolve.
The RSE is expected to take a broad view and be be looking for
the best ways to evolve the series for the benefit of the
entire Internet Community. As such, the RSE may even consider
evolution beyond the historical 'by engineers for engineers'
emphasis; and
and its publication-technical environment: looking at whether
it should be slowly changing in terms of publication and
archiving techniques; particularly to better serve the
communities that produce and depend on the RFC Series. For
example, all of those communities have been slowly changing to
include significant multi-lingual and non-native-English
populations. Another example is that some of these
constituencies also have a shifted to include significant
groups of members whose primary focus is on the constraints and
consequences of network engineering, rather than a primary
interest in the engineering issues themselves.
The RSE will develop consensus versions of vision and policy
documents which will be approved by the RFC Series Oversight
Committee (Section 4.1).
For this type of responsibility the RSE cooperates closely with the
community and under oversight of the RSOC and thus ultimately under
oversight of the IAB.
3.1.5. Workload
The job is expected initially to take on average half of an FTE
(approx 20 hrs per week), with the workload per week near full time
during IETF weeks, over 20 hours per week in the first few months of
the engagement, and higher during special projects.
3.1.6. Qualifications and Selection
The RFC Series Editor is a senior technology professional with the
following qualifications:
1. Executive management experience suitable to managing the
requirements outlined elsewhere in this document and the many
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aspects of this role, and to coordinating the overall RFC Editor
process.
2. Good understanding of the English language and technical
terminology related to the Internet.
3. Good communication skills.
4. Experience with editorial processes.
5. Ability to develop strong understanding of the IETF and RFC
process.
6. Independent worker.
7. Experience as an RFC author desired.
As described below (Section 4.1) the IAB appoints the RSOC and
delegates authority to it. One of the first responsibilities of the
RSOC will be to define in detail the solicitation and selection
process for the next RSE. The RSOC is expected to document to the
community the process it selects. Upon completion of selection, the
RSOC should determine the best way to preserve this information for
future use.
3.2. Independent Submission Editor
The Independent Submission Editor (ISE) is the head of the
Independent Submission Stream of RFCs, as defined by [RFC4844].
While formally part of the RFC Editor function, the Independent
Stream and the Independent Submission Editor are not under the
authority or direction of the RSE. As noted below, the ISE is
appointed by and is responsible directly to the IAB.
The Independent Submission Editor is an individual who may have
assistants and who is responsible for:
1. Maintaining technical quality of the Independent Submission
stream.
2. Reviewing, approving, and processing Independent Submissions.
3. Forwarding draft RFCs in the Independent Submission Stream to the
RFC Production Center.
4. Reviewing and approving Independent Submissions RFC errata.
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5. Coordinating work and conforming to general RFC Series policies
as specified by the IAB and RSE.
6. Providing statistics and documentation as requested by the RSE
and/or IAOC.
The Independent Submission Editor is a senior position for which the
following qualifications are desired:
1. Technical competence, i.e., broad technical experience and
perspective across the whole range of Internet technologies and
applications, and specifically, the ability to work effectively
with portions of that spectrum in which no personal expertise
exists.
2. Thorough familiarity with the RFC series.
3. An ability to define and constitute advisory and document review
arrangements. If those arrangements include an Editorial Board
similar to the current one or some equivalent arrangement, assess
the technical competence of potential Editorial Board members.
4. Good standing in the technical community, in and beyond the IETF.
5. Demonstrated editorial skills, good command of the English
language, and demonstrated history of being able to work
effectively with technical documents and materials created by
others.
6. The ability to work effectively in a multi-actor environment with
divided authority and responsibility similar to that described in
this document.
The Independent Submission Editor may seek support from an advisory
board (see Section 4.2) and may form a team to perform the activities
needed to fulfill their responsibilities.
The individual with the listed qualifications will be selected by the
IAB after input is collected from the community. An approach similar
to the one used by the IAB to select an IAOC member every other year
as described in [RFC4333] should be used. While the ISE itself is
considered a volunteer function, the IAB considers maintaining the
Independent Submission stream within the RFC Series part of the IAB's
supported activities, and will include the expenses made for the
support of the ISE in its IASA-supported budget.
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3.3. RFC Production Center
RFC Production is performed by a paid contractor, and the contractor
responsibilities include:
1. Editing inputs from all RFC streams to comply with the RFC Style
Manual, under the direction of the RSE;
2. Creating records of edits performed on documents;
3. Identifying where editorial changes might have technical impact
and seeking necessary clarification;
4. Engaging in dialog with authors, document shepherds, IANA,
and/or stream-dependent contacts when clarification is needed;
5. Creating records of dialog with document authors;
6. Requesting advice from the RFC Series Editor as needed;
7. Providing suggestions to the RFC Series Editor as needed;
8. Providing sufficient resources to support reviews of RFC
Publisher performance by the RFC Series Editor and external
reviews of the RFC Editor initiated by the IAB or IAOC;
9. Coordinating with IANA to perform protocol parameter registry
actions;
10. Assigning RFC numbers;
11. Establishing publication readiness of each document through
communication with the authors, document shepherds, IANA and/or
stream-dependent contacts, and, if needed, with the RFC Series
Editor;
12. Forwarding ready-to-publish documents to the RFC Publisher;
13. Forwarding records of edits and author dialog to the RFC
Publisher so these can be preserved;
14. Liaising with the streams as needed.
All these activities will be done under the general direction, but
not day to day management, of the RSE and need some level of
coordination with various submission streams and the RSE.
The RFC Production Center contractor is to be selected by the IAOC
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through an RFP process. The IAOC will seek a bidder who, among other
things, is able to provide a professional, quality, timely, and cost
effective service against the established style and production
guidelines. Contract terms, including length of contract, extensions
and renewals, shall be as defined in an RFP. The opportunity to bid
shall be broadly available.
3.4. RFC Publisher
The RFC Publisher responsibilities include:
1. Announcing and providing on-line access to RFCs.
2. Providing on-line system to submit RFC Errata.
3. Providing on-line access to approved RFC Errata.
4. Providing backups.
5. Providing storage and preservation of records.
6. Authenticating RFCs for legal proceedings.
All these activities will be done under the general direction, but
not day to day management, of the RSE and need some level of
coordination with various submission streams and the RSE.
The vendor selection by the IAOC is through an RFP process. This may
be part of the same contract as the RFC Production center, or may be
separate, as decided by the IAOC.
4. Committees
4.1. RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC)
The IAB is responsible for oversight over the RFC Series.
In order to provide continuity over periods longer than the nomcom
appointment cycle and assure that oversight is informed through
subject matter experts the IAB will establish a group that implements
oversight for the IAB, the RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC).
The RSOC will act with authority delegated from the IAB: In general
it will be the RSOC that will approve consensus policy and vision
documents as developed by the RSE in collaboration with the
community.
In those general cases the IAB is ultimately responsible for
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oversight and acts as a body for appeal and resolution.
For all aspects that affect the RSE itself (e.g. hiring and firing)
the RSOC prepares recommendations for the IAB but final decision is
the responsibility of the IAB. For instance the RSOC would:
o perform annual reviews of the RSE and reports to the IAB.
o manage RSE candidate selection and advises the IAB on candidate
appointment (in other words select the RSE, subject to IAB
approval)
It is expected that such oversight by the IAB is a matter of due
diligence and that the reports and recommendations from the RSOC are
approached as if they are binding.
RSOC members are expected to recognize potential conflicts of
interest and behave accordingly.
There is one aspect in which the RSOC will work with the IASA: the
remuneration of the RSE itself. The RSOC will propose a budget for
approval to the IASA.
The RSOC will be responsible to ensure that the RFC Series is run in
a transparent and accountable manner.
The RSOC shall develop and publish its own rules of order.
4.1.1. RSOC composition
The RSOC will operate under the authority of the IAB, with the IAB
retaining final responsibility. The IAB will delegate authority and
responsibility to the RSOC as appropriate and as RSOC and RSE
relationships evolve. The RSOC will include people who are not
current IAB members. Currently, this is aligned with the IAB Program
structure. The IAB will designate the membership of the RSOC with
the goals of preserving effective stability, keeping it small enough
to be effective, but large enough to provide general Internet
Community expertise, specific IETF expertise, Publication expertise,
and stream expertise. Members serve at the pleasure of the IAB and
are expected to bring a balance between short and long term
perspective. Specific input about, and recommendations of, members
will be sought from the streams, the IASA, and the RSE.
The RSE and a person designated to represent the IASA will serve as
ex-officio members of the RSOC but either or both can be excluded
from its discussions if necessary.
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4.1.2. Disagreements Among RFC Editor Entities
If during the execution of their activities, a disagreement arises
over an implementation decision made by one of the entities in the
model, any relevant party should first request a review and
reconsideration of the decision. If that party still disagrees after
the reconsideration, that party may ask the RSE to decide or,
especially if the RSE is involved, that party may ask the IAB Chair
(for a technical or procedural matter) or IAD (for an administrative
or contractual one) to mediate or appoint a mediator to aid in the
discussions, although neither is obligated to do so. All parties
should work informally and in good faith to reach a mutually
agreeable conclusion.
If such a conclusion is not possible through those informal
processes, then the matter must be registered with the RFC Series
Oversight Committee. The RSOC may choose to offer advice to the RSE
or more general advice to the parties involved and may ask the RSE to
defer a decision until it formulates its advice. However, if a
timely decision cannot be reached through discussion, mediation, and
mutual agreement, the Series Editor is expected to make whatever
decisions are needed to ensure the smooth functioning of the RFC
Editor function; those decisions are final.
RSE decisions of this type are limited to the functioning of the
process and evaluation of whether current policies are appropriately
implemented in the decision or need adjustment. In particular, it
should be noted that final decisions about the technical content of
individual documents are the exclusive responsibility of the stream
approvers for those documents, as shown in the illustration in
Figure 1.
If informal agreements cannot be reached, then formal RSOC review and
decision making may be required. If so, the the RSE must identify
the issues involved to the community, so that the community is aware
of the situation. The RSE will the report the issue to the RSOC for
formal resolution by the RSOC with confirmation by the IAB in its
oversight capacity.
IAB and community discussion of any patterns of disputes are expected
to inform future changes to Series policies including possible
updates to this document.
4.1.2.1. Issues with Contractual Impact
If a disagreement or decision has immediate or future contractual
consequences, the Series Editor must identify the issue to the IAOC
and, if the RSOC has provided advice, forward that advice as well.
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After the IAOC has notified the IAB, the IAD as guided by the IAOC,
with advice provided by the Series Editor, has the responsibility to
resolve these contractual issues.
4.2. Independent Submission Stream Editorial Board
The Independent Submission Editor is supported by an Editorial Board
for the review of Independent Submission stream documents. This
board is known as the Independent Submission Stream Editorial Board.
This volunteer Editorial Board exists at the pleasure of the ISE, and
the members serve at the pleasure of the ISE. The existence of this
board is simply noted within this model, and additional discussion of
such is considered out of scope of this document.
5. IANA considerations
This document defines several functions within the overall RFC Editor
structure, and it places the responsibility for coordination of
registry value assignments with the RFC Production Center. The IAOC
will facilitate the establishment of the relationship between the RFC
Production Center and IANA.
This document does not create a new registry nor does it register any
values in existing registries, and no IANA action is required.
6. Security considerations
The same security considerations as those in RFC 4844 apply. The
processes for the publication of documents must prevent the
introduction of unapproved changes. Since the RFC Editor maintains
the index of publications, sufficient security must be in place to
prevent these published documents from being changed by external
parties. The archive of RFC documents, any source documents needed
to recreate the RFC documents, and any associated original documents
(such as lists of errata, tools, and, for some early items, non-
machine readable originals) need to be secured against failure of the
storage medium and other similar disasters.
The IAOC should take these security considerations into account
during the implementation of this RFC Editor model.
7. Acknowledgments
The RFC Editor model was conceived and discussed in hallways and on
mail lists. The first iteration of the text on which this document
is based was first drafted by Leslie Daigle, Russ Housley, and Ray
Pelletier. In addition to the members of the IAOC and IAB in
conjunction with those roles, major and minor contributions were made
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by (in alphabetical order): Bob Braden, Brian Carpenter, Sandy
Ginoza, Alice Hagens, Joel M. Halpern, Alfred Hoenes, Paul Hoffman,
John Klensin, Subramanian Moonesamy, and Jim Schaad.
The IAOC members at the time the RFC Editor model was approved were
(in alphabetical order): Fred Baker, Bob Hinden, Russ Housley, Ole
Jacobsen, Ed Juskevicius, Olaf Kolkman, Ray Pelletier (non-voting),
Lynn St.Amour, and Jonne Soininen. In addition, Marshall Eubanks was
serving as the IAOC Scribe.
The IAB members at the time the initial RFC Editor model was approved
were (in alphabetical order): Loa Andersson, Gonzalo Camarillo,
Stuart Cheshire, Russ Housley, Olaf Kolkman, Gregory Lebovitz, Barry
Leiba, Kurtis Lindqvist, Andrew Malis, Danny McPherson, David Oran,
Dave Thaler, and Lixia Zhang. In addition, the IAB included two ex-
officio members: Dow Street, who was serving as the IAB Executive
Director, and Aaron Falk, who was serving as the IRTF Chair.
The IAB members at the time the this RFC was approved were (in
alphabetical order): Marcelo Bagnulo, Gonzalo Camarillo, Stuart
Cheshire, Vijay Gill, Russ Housley, John Klensin, Olaf Kolkman,
Gregory Lebovitz, Andrew Malis, Danny McPherson, David Oran, Jon
Peterson, and Dave Thaler.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC4844] Daigle, L. and Internet Architecture Board, "The RFC
Series and RFC Editor", RFC 4844, July 2007.
[RFC4071] Austein, R. and B. Wijnen, "Structure of the IETF
Administrative Support Activity (IASA)", BCP 101,
RFC 4071, April 2005.
[RFC2850] Internet Architecture Board and B. Carpenter, "Charter of
the Internet Architecture Board (IAB)", BCP 39, RFC 2850,
May 2000.
8.2. Informative References
[RFC4333] Huston, G. and B. Wijnen, "The IETF Administrative
Oversight Committee (IAOC) Member Selection Guidelines and
Process", BCP 113, RFC 4333, December 2005.
[RFC5620] Kolkman, O. and IAB, "RFC Editor Model (Version 1)",
RFC 5620, August 2009.
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Appendix A. Internet Draft editing details
[This appendix is to be removed at publication]
$Id: draft-iab-rfc-editor-model.xml 55 2009-06-08 12:32:59Z olaf $
A.1. Section 00->01
Added Sandy and Alice to the acknowledgment section, they were
accidentally omitted
Added text so that the selection mechanism is explicitly documented.
The selection mechanism documents the use of an advisory committee
and is explicit about the fact that the community expands beyond the
IETF community.
Modified the RFC Editor Function name to "RFC Series Editor" in order
to minimize confusion between the collective of functions (RFC
Editor) and the function (Series Editor).
Added wording for specifying the technical competence needed by the
indep.subm.editor as suggested by JCK
Clarified the responsibilities of the production function in
Section 3.3
Enumerated qualifications of the RFC Editor
A.2. Section 01->02
Various nits corrected
Inconsistency in the use of RFC Production house and RFC Production
fixed: RFC Production Center used as term
Oversight over RFC consistency with the style manual has been made
explicit.
Clarified that the Independent Submission Stream Editors budget is
independent from the IETF/IASA.
Improved the language that clarified that the RFC Series editors and
Independent Submission Stream editor do not necessarily need to work
without assistants, while they bear the responsibility.
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A.3. Section 02->03
Added Joel to the acknowledgments
Added the Advisory committee charter as a FYI
Added editorial skill and command of English as a requirement for the
ISE
In the responsibilities for the RFC series: Change "Participate in"
to "Provide input in" for IAOC Review. This makes the text more
implementation neutral.
Typo: Model is consistent with RFC4844 instead of 4884
Added "Maintaining technical quality of the Independent Submission
stream" as an explicit responsibility for the ISE.
A.4. section 03->04
[omitted by accident]
A.5. section 04->05
Introduced the concept of the RFC Series Advisory Group and reworked
the text to take this into account. This also caused the renaming of
the advisory group to an explicit "Independent Submission Stream
Editorial Board".
Rewrote the appeal process to take the RSAG into account
Extended the appointment period to 3 years
A.6. section 05->06
This version documents decisions made by the IAB during prior to
approval during its April 27-28 retreat
Addressed some nits
Rewritten details of dispute resolution. Also stopped using the
words appeal or dispute resolution as they have a specific meaning in
the standards process
The ISE's expenses are covered from the IASA budget.
The envisioned size of the RSAG is changed from 6 to un-specified,
the RSAG is allowed to advice on the size later
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Rewrote/clarified requirements for RSE and ISE function
A.7. section 06->07
Fixed nits
Addressed some IAB concerns that were accidentally omitted in version
06
A.8. section 07->08
pen handed to Joel Halpern, added as Editor
clarified text on RSE non-authority to hire and fire.
Replaced structure diagram in section 3 with diagram developed by
Glenn Kowack.
Replaced responsibilities section (3) with a structure to match the
ongoing SoW, with content largely derived by Olaf Kolkman.
replaced RSAG section (4.1) with RSOC section, with new procedures
and responsibilities.
Removed description of 2009 selection process.
A.9. v2-00->v2-01
Editorial corrections and reference additions.
Rewriting text on the vision for the development of the RFC Series.
Clean up the text explaining the relationship between RSE management
and IAOC budgetary authority.
cleaned up text to better explain the RSE's role in judging community
policy consensus.
Clarified the general but not day to day managerial relationship of
the RSE with the production and publication factilities.
Highlight special handling of disagreements with contractual
implications.
Clarify that the ISE is part of the RFC Editor function, but not
under the authority of the RSE.
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Authors' Addresses
Olaf M. Kolkman
EMail: olaf@nlnetlabs.nl
Joel M. Halpern
Ericsson
EMail: joel.halpern@ericsson.com
Internet Architecture Board
EMail: iab@iab.org
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