Network Working Group P. Hoffman
Internet-Draft VPN Consortium
Intended status: Informational October 18, 2010
Expires: April 21, 2011
Requirements for a Working Group Charter Tool
draft-ietf-genarea-charter-tool-00
Abstract
The IETF intends to provide a new tool to Area Directors for the
creation, re-chartering, and closing of Working Groups. The tool
will also allow the IETF community to view the status of the
chartering process. 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
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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 April 21, 2011.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2010 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
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include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
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described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. WG Charter Process Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Discussion of These Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Tool Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Requirement: Creating a new WG record . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Requirement: Modifying an existing WG record . . . . . . . 4
2.3. Requirement: Moving a charter through all steps in the
review process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4. Requirement: Adding comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.5. Requirement: Requesting the closing of a WG . . . . . . . . 4
2.6. Requirement: Wording of announcements . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.7. Requirements: Access by the IETF Secretariat and IETF
Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.8. Requirement: Showing some information only to ADs and
the Secretariat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.9. Requirement: Viewing and searching the charter database . . 5
2.10. Requirement: Initializing the tool . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Appendix A. Some Known Open Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
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1. Introduction
IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a very early draft of a set of requirements.
It has gone through no general community review, and thus probably is
missing many things that should be included, and some of the things
in this draft are wrong and will be changed in future drafts.
Nothing in this draft should be considered solid, and the author
acknowledges that the grammar is rough in places.
[RFC2418] describes the guidelines and procedures for formation and
operation of IETF Working Groups (WGs). Since its publication in
1998, the IETF has started many dozen new WGs, has shut down many
dozen, and every WG that has had some (often dozens) of changes to
its charter.
Currently, virtually all of the tasks associated with creating,
rechartering, and closing a WG are performed manually. An Area
Director (AD) requests one of these actions by manually sending a
message to the Secretariat's ticket system. A member of the
Secretariat staff manually updates the internal Secretariat database
and the IETF Datatracker, manually places the WG on the IESG
teleconference agenda (when appropriate), and manually sends out all
of the required messages and announcements.
The IAOC would like to create a better tool for those tasks, 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.
1.1. WG Charter Process Overview
As described in [RFC2418], a key responsibility of the IESG is the
creation, re-chartering, and closing of WGs. Creation and
rechartering of WGs is a multi-step process that involves internal
review of a draft charter by the IESG and IAB, an external review of
the draft charter by the IETF community, and (likely) approval of a
final charter by the IESG. The internal review by the IESG and IAB,
and the external review by the IETF community, often result in
revisions to the draft charter.
Closing of a WG does not require review or approval by the IESG.
Rather, a WG may be closed at the request of an AD, (normally the
Area Advisor for the WG).
1.2. Discussion of These Requirements
[[ There is no mailing list for this draft at this time; one will
hopefully appear before the next version of this draft. ]]
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2. Tool Requirements
The tool described here holds records for new WGs that are being
considered as well as for all WGs whose charter are under review.
2.1. Requirement: Creating a new WG record
Any AD can create a new WG record with a proposed charter. The tool
will guide the AD through this process with step-by-step
instructions, and will validate each new data entry. The AD who
creates the record becomes the initial shepherding AD.
The shepherding AD of an existing WG can create a new record in the
tool when a WG's charter is expected to change.
2.2. Requirement: Modifying an existing WG record
The shepherding AD can modify an existing WG record. These
modifications include (at a minimum) changes to the charter text, to
the name of of the shepherding AD, to the suggested WG chairs, to the
applicable Area.
2.3. Requirement: Moving a charter through all steps in the review
process
The shepherding AD can directly change the state of a WG record to
any of the following states:
o Internal IESG review -- This causes a message to be sent to all
IESG members.
o Scheduled for IESG teleconference -- This causes an item to be
added to the teleconference agenda.
o In IETF review -- This causes a message to be sent to
ietf-announce@ietf.org and starts a timer for remind the
sponsoring AD when the review completes.
2.4. Requirement: Adding comments
Every AD can add a comment to the record of a WG that is under
review. Each comment can be flagged as private, meaning that it is
only to be viewed by the IESG and IETF Secretariat.
2.5. Requirement: Requesting the closing of a WG
A shepherding AD can request the Secretariat to close an existing WG.
The shepherding AD of an existing WG can create a new record in the
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tool when the WG is expected to shut down. The request action will
prompt the AD to provide instructions regarding the disposition of
any active Internet-Drafts (withdraw them or convert them to
individual submissions), and the status of the WG mailing list (will
it remain open or should it be closed).
2.6. Requirement: Wording of announcements
The shepherding AD can view and edit all of the standard "WG Review"
and "WG Action" announcements before they are sent out during the WG
creation, rechartering, and closing processes.
2.7. Requirements: Access by the IETF Secretariat and IETF Chair
The IETF Secretariat, and the IETF Chair, can perform all actions
that can be performed by any AD in this tool.
2.8. Requirement: Showing some information only to ADs and the
Secretariat
Some information, such as the names of the proposed WG chairs and
private comments, will be viewable only by ADs and the IESG
Secretariat.
2.9. Requirement: Viewing and searching the charter database
All members of the IETF community can view the public portions of the
charter database. They can also search for a WG record in the tool
based on one or more of the following criteria:
o WG name (full or partial)
o WG acronym
o WG charter state
o Shepherding AD
o Area
Further, all users can view all snapshots of earlier versions of a
WG's charter.
2.10. Requirement: Initializing the tool
Records for all WGs that are being created, or are in the process of
charter updates, will be added before the tool is first publicly
deployed.
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3. IANA Considerations
None.
4. Security Considerations
Creating a new tool for tracking the charter of WGs does not affect
the security of the Internet in any significant fashion.
5. Acknowledgements
This document draws heavily on, including wholesale copying from,
earlier work done on this topic by other writers. They will be
acknowledged by name in a future version of this document when their
identities are ascertained.
6. Normative References
[RFC2418] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.
Appendix A. Some Known Open Issues
Given the very early stage of this document, there are actually many
more open issues than are listed here. This list is mostly meant to
remind the author of topics that need to be updated in future
versions of the document, and to spur readers to think of even more
open issues.
o There needs to be a section on access control for ADs and
Secretariat staff.
o It is not yet clear whether the tool will have its own database or
use the current Datatracker database.
o There needs to be a requirement about Atom feeds for the charters.
o What lists other than ietf-announce need to be told of external
review?
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Author's Address
Paul Hoffman
VPN Consortium
Email: paul.hoffman@vpnc.org
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