Network Working Group P. Hoffman
Internet-Draft VPN Consortium
Updates: May 28, 2011
raft-ietf-genarea-charter-tool
(if approved)
Intended status: Informational
Expires: November 29, 2011
Requirements for a Working Group Milestones Tool
draft-ietf-genarea-milestones-tool-01
Abstract
The IETF intends to provide a new tool to Working Group chairs and
Area Directors for the creation and updating of milestones for
Working Groups. 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
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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 29, 2011.
Copyright Notice
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document authors. All rights reserved.
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described in the Simplified BSD License.
1. Introduction
[RFC2418] describes the guidelines and procedures for operation of
IETF Working Groups (WGs). Every WG has milestones that the WG is
supposed to meet, such as the publication of a particular Internet-
Draft or the beginning of discussion on a particular topic. The WG's
milestones are commonly listed with the WG's charter, although the
milestones are not formally part of the charter.
Today, the tasks associated with creating and updating WG milestones
are performed manually. Normally, WG chairs send email to their Area
Director (AD) requesting that milestones be created or updated, or
saying that one or more milestone has been met. These messages
sometimes come as part of charter creation or updating, but are often
separate (such as if a current milestone is met but there is no
reason to update the charter itself). WG chairs sometimes send mail
directly to the IETF Secretariat to make a change to the database of
milestones, such as to change the dates for milestones or to say that
they are completed.
In early 2011, the IETF approved a set of requirements for a tool
that helps ADs with the WG chartering and rechartering process
[CHARTER-TOOL]. During the IESG discussion of that document, it
became clear that everyone wanted more automation to the milestones
process. This document, and the discussion it will hopefully
engender, is intended to bring that discussion to a general consensus
among WG chairs and ADs for the requirements for the eventual tool.
The IAOC would like to create a better tool for the tasks of WG
milestone creation and updating, 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. Discussion of These Requirements
This document is being discussed on the wgchairs@ietf.org mailing
list. See <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/wgchairs> for more
information. [[ This subsection is to be deleted before publication.
]]
2. Users of the Tool
This tool can only be used by WG chairs and ADs, not by other members
of the IETF community. The tool will use the login and access
control features that will already be in place from the outcome of
the tool created by [CHARTER-TOOL]. It is important to note that
some people are chairs for more than one WG, and everyone must be
able to use the tool for all of the WGs that they chair.
Any AD can add or update any milestone for any WG. Normally, an AD
would only add or update milestones in the WGs for which they are the
responsible AD, but ADs are not bound by such a limitation. WG
chairs can only add or update milestones for WGs of which they are
chairs.
The IETF Secretariat needs to be able to perform the same tasks as
the WG chairs and ADs in order to fix problems or to make emergency
changes.
The database will record the date and person who initiates any
addition of, or change to, a milestone.
3. Updating, Adding, and Deleting Milestones
A WG chair needs to see all of the milestones for that chair's WG in
the tool. The chair needs to be able to edit any milestone record
for that chair's WG. In each existing record, the chair needs to be
able to edit the due date, the finished date, the associated
Internet-Drafts, and the description of the milestone. The chair
also needs to be able to delete existing milestones.
A WG chair needs to be able to add one or more milestone records to
the database for their WG. The chair needs to be able to specify the
due date, zero or more associated Internet-Drafts, and the
description of the record that he or she is adding. A WG chair also
needs to be able to delete one or more existing milestones.
4. Approval of Milestone Additions and Changes
[[ The following proposal is based on early input to this draft, and
may change significantly as the these requirements are discussed. ]]
The responsible AD for a WG can specify whether any of the following
actions can be made without the AD approval for milestones associated
with the WG:
o create new milestones
o delete milestones
o change milestone descriptions
o change milestone due dates
o change which Internet-Drafts are associated with a milestone
o assert that a milestone is completed
The default settings at the time that this feature is launched will
be that all actions other than changing due dates and asserting
completion require AD approval. These settings apply both to
additions and changes made by WG chairs and by other ADs.
After this tool is launched, the IETF Secretariat will no longer need
to post a change to the database: the tool will do this without
intervention by the Secretariat.
5. Mapping Milestones to Internet-Drafts
There is currently no requirement how WG milestones map to Internet-
Drafts. While most milestones map one-to-one with Internet-Drafts,
some milestones do not map to any Internet-Draft (such as those that
say when a general discussion will begin or finish), and other
milestones map to multiple Internet-Drafts (such as a milestone that
covers a topic that has multiple related Internet-Drafts). Some
Internet-Drafts are part of more than one milestone.
The new tool is required to make mappings between milestones and
Internet-Drafts explicit, and those drafts must be listed in views of
the milestone. This change will require a change to the Datatracker
database to make such an association.
When an Internet-Draft that is mapped to a milestone changes its
state to "Submitted to IESG for Publication" as described in
[RFC6174], the tool will send a message to the WG chairs to remind
them that they might want to update the milestone. Note that this
message will not apply to all Internet-Drafts that are mapped to a
milestone, so it is up to the WG chairs to decide what to do when
such a message is received.
6. Reminders for WG Chairs and ADs
Milestone changes that do not require AD approval are made
immediately. Requested changes that require AD approval are tracked
by the tool. If the AD has not approved or rejected the change
within a week, email listing the request and the request date is sent
to the WG chairs and AD. That email is sent every week until the AD
has approved or rejected the request.
The tool will also send WG chairs reminders about pending milestones.
A message is sent when a milestone is one month from being due, at
the time a milestone is due, and every month in which a milestone is
overdue.
The tool will also send WG chairs reminders about Internet-Drafts
that are mapped to milestones. A message is sent when such a draft
is one month from expiring, and at the time that a draft expires. If
a milestone is mapped to a draft that is expired, mail reminding the
chairs of this will be sent weekly.
7. Viewing Changes in Milestones
Section 5 of [CHARTER-TOOL] describes an extension to the Datatracker
to allow the IETF community to view, search, and track changes to WG
charters. This document updates those requirements to allow the IETF
community to view, search, and track changes to WG milestones.
Section 5.1 of [CHARTER-TOOL] is updated to allow searching for any
text in a milestone's description, as well as for the name of any
Internet-Draft name that is mapped to any milestone.
A new capability will be added to the Datatracker that is similar to
that described in Section 5.2 of [CHARTER-TOOL], but instead of
showing differences between charters, it shows differences between
the full set of milestones. Any time a milestone is added, deleted,
or any of its fields changed, the full set of milestones is
considered changed. Someone should be able to easily compare two
full sets of milestones. They should also be able to see two more
full sets of milestones with the differences highlighted. The tool
should show who made each change when changes are viewed. These
features should be found in the same place as the features described
in Section 5.2 of [CHARTER-TOOL].
The tool needs to provide an Atom feed [RFC4287] for the changes in
the milestones for a WG. The contents of the feed are the full WG
record, plus an indication of what changed since the last entry in
the feed and who made the change. This feed is different than the
feed described in Section 5.3 of [CHARTER-TOOL], but it should be
offered to users in the same places as that feed is offered.
8. IANA Considerations
None. [[ ...and thus this section can be removed before publication
as an RFC... ]]
9. Security Considerations
Creating a new tool for updating the milestones of WGs does not
affect the security of the Internet in any significant fashion.
10. Acknowledgements
This document draws heavily on ideas from various WG chairs and ADs
on the wgchairs@ietf.org mailing list.
11. References
11.1. Normative References
[CHARTER-TOOL]
Hoffman, P., "Requirements for a Working Group Charter
Tool", draft-ietf-genarea-charter-tool (work in progress),
April 2011.
[RFC2418] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.
[RFC6174] Juskevicius, E., "Definition of IETF Working Group
Document States", RFC 6174, March 2011.
11.2. Informative References
[RFC4287] Nottingham, M., Ed. and R. Sayre, Ed., "The Atom
Syndication Format", RFC 4287, December 2005.
Appendix A. Earlier Proposals
During the early discussion of the requirements for this document in
the IESG and among WG chair, there was not a common agreement about
how milestones management should be handled.
Some felt that WG chairs should be able to update their milestones
without any AD intervention, as long as the responsible AD was
informed after each change
Some felt that ADs need to approve every change before the change
is announced to the community
Some felt that ADs might approve additions to the list of
milestones and changing of a milestone's description, but not need
to approve changing of milestone dates
Some felt that ADs should be able to select which WGs could update
their milestones without AD intervention while allowing others to
do so freely, or for an AD to be able to set a limit on how many
new milestones a WG could add before the AD had to intervene
The requirements given in this document is that the default settings
for the new tool should match the requirements faced by WG chairs
currently.
Some participants felt that the new tool should have a mode where
milestones whose essence is that a particular draft is sent to the
IESG is automatically marked as complete when the draft's state is
that it has gone to IETF consideration. However, there was a fair
amount of disagrement about the need for such a mode and whether it
would end up restricting actions that should remain flexible.
Author's Address
Paul Hoffman
VPN Consortium
Email: paul.hoffman@vpnc.org
Datatracker
draft-ietf-genarea-milestones-tool-01
Internet-Draft
