Network Working Group P. Hoffman
Internet-Draft VPN Consortium
Intended status: Informational January 18, 2012
Expires: July 21, 2012
Requirements for Remote Participation Services for the IETF
draft-ietf-genarea-rps-reqs-01
Abstract
The IETF has provided some tools for remote participation in its
activities for many years, and some IETF participants have also used
their own tools when they felt the need arise. The IETF now wishes
to support enhanced remote participation that is as seamless as
possible, approaching the quality of direct physical attendance for
the various roles, including chair, presenter and simple attendee.
Before deploying the new tools and services needed for this enhanced
remote participation, the requirements for such tools and services
must be defined. This document is meant to be that definition.
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
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
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 July 21, 2012.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 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
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. About This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Scenarios Required to be Supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Interactions with Current RPS Tools Used by the IETF . . . . . 7
3.1. Technologies Currently Used at Regular IETF Meetings . . . 7
3.2. Locating the Meeting Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2.1. Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2.2. Instant Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.3. Slides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3. Remotely Speaking at the Mic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.4. Chairs and Floor Control for Remote Attendees . . . . . . 11
3.5. Remotely Presenting at Regular IETF Meetings . . . . . . . 12
3.6. Experiences with Remote Participation in Virtual
Interim Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4. Requirements for Supporting Remote Participation in
Face-to-Face Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.1. Registration for Remote Participation . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2. Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.1. Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2.2. Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.2.3. Instant Messaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.2.4. Slide Presentations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.2.5. Slide Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.2.6. Shared Document Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3. Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.3.1. Requirements for Remote Participation . . . . . . . . 19
4.3.2. Floor Control for Chairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.3.3. Archiving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.3.4. Transcription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.3.5. Polling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.4. Use by IETF Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.5. Plenaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5. Requirements for Supporting All-Remote Meetings . . . . . . . 23
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
9. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
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1. Introduction
There are two types of participants at the three-times-a-year IETF
meetings: the people who are physically at the meeting ("local
attendees") and people that are not physically at the meeting but are
following the meeting online ("remote attendees"). For more than a
decade, the IETF has tried to make it easier for remote attendees to
participate in its face-to-face meetings in a meaningful fashion by
providing supported and experimental online services.
At the same time, many IETF Working Groups (WGs) have started to have
interim meetings that are scheduled between the regular IETF
meetings; these are described (briefly) in [RFC2418]. Some of these
interim meetings are face-to-face meetings with remote attendees,
while other interim meetings only take place over the Internet or on
the phone; the latter type of meeting is often called a "virtual
interim".
The IETF's current remote participation system ("RPS") for the
official three-times-a-year meetings ("regular IETF meetings")
consists of a real-time audio stream carried over HTTP, textual
instant messaging (IM) carried over Jabber, as well as experimental
support for two integrated tools, WebEx and Meetecho. Some WGs
employ ad-hoc tools such as Skype. For interim WG meetings, the IETF
provides access to WebEx. The IETF's leadership regularly uses
telephone, Jabber, and WebEx for the many meetings that happen
between the IETF meetings.
The IETF wants to improve the tools provided in the RPS for many
reasons.
o A better RPS would allow more people to participate in regular
IETF meetings more effectively, hopefully leading to better WG
outcomes such as faster progression of WG documents, more
reviewers of WG documents, and more discussion of changes needed
to those documents during the WG process. There are many people
who are active in many WGs who rarely or never come to IETF
meetings; good RPS tools could allow these people to contribute
significantly during meetings like they do on the mailing lists.
o The improved RPS tools would also be used outside IETF meetings.
They would be available to WGs for interim meetings, both to allow
remote participation in face-to-face interims as well as to
facilitate "virtual interims" where none of the participants are
in the same location.
o The plenary sessions of IETF meetings currently only allow remote
attendees to hear the speakers and read a real-time transcript.
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Improved RPS tools would allow remote attendees to see the
speakers and be able to comment at the mics like people in the
room.
o The IETF leadership (the IAB, IESG, IAOC, and probably others)
could use the new tools to help make their own meetings more
effective.
1.1. About This Document
The purpose of this document is to develop the requirements and
functional specifications for the IETF's RPS that enables enhanced
remote participation in meeting sessions. The RPS described in this
document might augment and/or replace the current set of IETF RPS
tools. The intention is for the experience of remote attendees to
rival those of local attendees.
After the tools that meet the requirements in this document are
deployed, there will probably be a change in the participation in
regular IETF meetings.
o Some people who would make an effort to come to a particular IETF
meeting might be more likely to attend remotely. Such a change
will reduce the number of local participants, which will both
reduce the amount that the IETF makes from registration fees and
makes the informal gatherings during the IETF meeting less
valuable because of the reduced networking effects.
o People who are active on WG mailing lists but not in the regular
meetings are more likely to participate in the meetings remotely.
Such a change might cause more effective meetings for WGs that
currently have little energy because more people will participate.
WG meetings that already have lots of participants will probably
become busier. Presentations on documents where none of the
authors come to regular IETF meetings will be much more likely to
be given by the authors instead of by their proxies.
o If the tools make regular IETF meetings and interim meetings much
more effective, the IETF might be able to reduce the number of
regular meetings each year from three to two. This would
significantly reduce the impact of travel on regular IETF
participants and make meeting planning much easier, but would
significantly reduce the amount of income for the IETF and also
reduce the amount of side-meeting value per year for participants.
Note that some of the requirements in this document for particular
functionality may not be desired by all WG chairs. The tools
proposed will not force a particular WG to use all the features
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proposed.
This document is being produced at the request of the IAOC. The
request for proposals that led to this document can be found at
[RPS-RFP]. This document does not specify specific technologies or
instantiations of tools. Instead, it is meant to be used as a guide
for the IAOC to later contract the development and deployment of the
tools described here.
Requirements in this document are numbered, such as "**Requirement
01-00**". In the IETF, there is an active (and never-ending) debate
about what is a "requirement". In the context of this document, a
requirement is something that must appear in one of the iterations of
the eventual RPS in order to support the mission of enabling useful
remote participation in meeting sessions.
Later versions of this document will differentiate between
requirements that must be met by the first version of the RPS and
requirements that must be met by future versions of the RPS. For
example, a requirement for the first version of the RPS might be
"chairs must be able to specify which remote attendee can speak
next", whereas a requirement for a later version of the RPS might be
"chairs must be able to perform many or all chair duties at a regular
IETF meeting while participating remotely". [[[ TODO: come up with a
way to differentiate these two and start marking them as such. ]]]
A functional specification is an approach to meeting one or more
requirement. For example, a requirement might be "chairs must be
able to specify which remote attendee can speak next" and a
function's specification associated with that requirement might be
"floor control can be done through a stand-alone application or web
form". Functional specifications are not (currently) called out in
this document.
The requirements covered in this document apply almost exclusively to
tools and services that are used for remote participation in real-
time meetings. The document does not cover the many other tools used
by WGs for non-real-time communication such as mailing lists, issue
trackers, document flow control systems, and so on. Many of the non-
real-time tools are also being improved over time, but they are not
the subject of this document.
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].
This document is being discussed on the vmeet@ietf.org mailing list.
See <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/vmeet> for more
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information.
2. Scenarios Required to be Supported
The are many IETF-related activities that can be aided by remote
participation tools. The scenarios in which the RPS described in
this document is expected to be used are:
o WG sessions at regular IETF meetings -- A typical regular IETF
meeting has about 150 sessions, with up to 8 of those sessions
happening at the same time. A session might have between 20 and
200 local attendees in the room, and might have only a few or many
dozens of remote attendees. WG sessions typically have one to
three co-chairs at the front of the room and a series of
individuals who come to the front to present; some presentations
are made by small panels.
o Plenaries at regular IETF meetings -- There are usually two
plenaries at a regular IETF meeting, with on-site attendance of
about 700 local attendees and dozens of remote attendees. There
are from 1 to 20 presenters; presentations may be made by multiple
people.
o Face-to-face interim WG meetings -- Between regular IETF meetings,
some WGs hold interim meetings where participants get together at
a site (often a company's meeting room, but sometimes a meeting
room rented at a hotel). At such meetings, there are between a
handful and a few dozen local attendees and a similar number of
remote attendees. Presentations are common.
o Virtual interim WG meetings -- Between regular IETF meetings, some
WGs hold virtual interim meetings where there are no local
attendees because there is no central meeting location. There are
between a handful and a few dozen attendees. Presentations are
common.
o IETF leadership meetings -- The IETF leadership (the IESG, IAOC,
IAB, and probably others) have periodic virtual meetings, usually
with presentations. These groups also meet at the regular IETF
meetings, and sometimes have remote attendees at those meetings
(such as members who cannot attend the IETF meeting or presenters
who are not part of the leadership group).
[[[ TODO: Count the number of f2f and virtual interims from the past
few years. ]]]
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3. Interactions with Current RPS Tools Used by the IETF
Users' experience with the current IETF tools vary widely. Some
participants think the tools are fine and are grateful that they
exist. Other participants find them barely acceptable because they
have used better tools in other environments. Often, local attendees
mostly forget that the remote attendees are participating until one
gets something said at the mic. Local attendees don't have a feeling
for how many remote attendees are just listening like most of the
local attendees.
The variety of current experiences can help inform the discussion of
how to improve the tools. The requirements here are derived from the
current tools; later sections derive requirements from needs that are
not at all met by the current tools.
The IETF has years of experience with the two primary tools used at
its regular meetings (Jabber for IM and streaming audio). This
section discusses some of the reactions of users -- those in the
meetings and those who have participated remotely -- to the current
tools.
3.1. Technologies Currently Used at Regular IETF Meetings
There are three tools that are used by remote attendees for WG
participation at regular IETF meetings: real-time audio, instant
messaging, and slides.
For the past few years, the IETF has used audio streamed over HTTP
over TCP. TCP is often buffered at many places between (and in) the
origination in the IETF meeting venue and the users' computer. At
recent meetings, delays of around 30 seconds have been recorded, with
minimum delays typically being five seconds. This delay is caused by
buffering at the hop-by-hop ISPs and in the remote attendee's
computer. At recent IETF meetings, remote attendance is almost
always less than 10% of local attendance, and is often less than 5%.
(There are more remote attendees when the IETF meeting is in the
U.S.) Each stream is represented by an MP3 playlist (sometimes called
an "m3u file").
The IETF long ago standardized on Jabber / XMPP ([RFC3920],
[RFC3921], and others) for instant messaging used within the IETF.
Jabber rooms (formally called "multi-user conferences" or "MUCs")
exist for every WG, and those rooms are live all the time, not just
during regular IETF meetings. There are also stable Jabber rooms for
the plenaries and certain other activities. BoFs are usually
assigned Jabber rooms before a regular meeting.
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Presentation slides normally are stored either as PDFs or in one of
Microsoft's formats for PowerPoint. They are projected on a local
screen from someone's laptop computer.
There has been experience at recent meetings with two tools, WebEx
and Meetecho, which are supported experimentally by the IETF. Each
tool was used by a handful of WGs with mixed success. The tools
require remote attendees to use specific clients, and installation of
those clients caused problems for some people. On the other hand,
the tools have much more robust meeting control features, and
participants appreciated the real-time showing of slides during
presentations.
3.2. Locating the Meeting Information
Finding information for the real-time audio, instant messaging, and
slides for an upcoming or current regular meeting is complicated by
that information being in many different locations on the IETF web
site, and the fact that the relevant URLs can change before and even
during the meeting. Further, a WG chair might copy the latest
information and send it to the WG mailing list, but there can be
later changes. Experienced remote attendees have gotten used to
checking just before the meeting itself, but even that does not
always guarantee the correct information.
Currently, the meeting information appears in two different agendas:
o The official agenda on the IETF Datatracker includes links to
venue maps, WG charters, agendas, and Internet-Drafts. For
example, see
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/82/agenda.html>.
o The unofficial "tools-style agenda" includes the same links as the
official agenda plus links to the presentations, audio, minutes,
Jabber room, and Jabber logs 9represnted as small icons). For
example, see <http://tools.ietf.org/agenda/82/>.
3.2.1. Audio
The URL for the audio stream for a WG or BoF meeting is based on the
room that the meeting is in. The audio streams are announced on the
general IETF mailing list (ietf@ietf.org) before each meeting.
A common complaint is that when a WG meeting moves to a different
room, remote users need to know about the move so that they can use
the proper URL to hear the audio stream. The room changes are often,
but not always, announced on WG mailing lists; when they are not
announced, there is no easy way for a remote attendee to find out
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which audio stream they should be listening to. Sometimes, room
changes happen just as a WG meeting is starting, making it nearly
impossible for a remote attendee to know about the change in streams.
3.2.2. Instant Messaging
The Jabber rooms used by WGs and BoFs do not change between IETF
meetings, so finding the right Jabber room is relatively easy. Some
Jabber clients have odd interfaces for joining Jabber rooms, and this
can cause some problems; even though participants can test their
Jabber clients before a meeting, there still seems to be some who
need help just before a WG meeting.
3.2.3. Slides
Slides are available from the meeting materials page. Many, but
certainly not all, local and remote attendees know how to find the
meeting materials page.
It has become fairly common for presenters to not have their
presentations available for distribution until just before the WG
meeting. Because materials are uploaded by the WG chairs, this often
causes the beginning of WG meetings to be a dance involving
presenters giving the chairs their slides, followed by chairs
uploading the slides to the IETF site, followed by the chairs saying
"the slides are there now".
3.3. Remotely Speaking at the Mic
In order for a remote attendee to speak at the mic, a local attendee
must say it for them. In most WG and BoF meetings, this is done by
the remote attendee typing into the Jabber room for the meeting, and
some local attendee going to the mic and repeating what was typed
into the Jabber room.
This method of participation often works adequately, but there are
many places where it fails. The following is a compendium of stories
from recent IETF meetings where remotely speaking at the mic didn't
work as well as it could have. The participants are Chris and Carl
(WG co-chairs), Sam (volunteer Jabber scribe), Rachel and Robert
(remote attendees), Pete (presenter), and Len and Lee (local
attendees).
o Robert cannot understand what Pete is saying about slide 5, but
Sam doesn't get Pete's attention until Pete is already on slide 7
and Pete doesn't want to go back.
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o Rachel wants to say something, but Sam's Jabber client has crashed
and no one else in the Jabber room knows why Sam isn't going to
the mic.
o Robert wants to say something, but Sam is already at the mic
speaking for Rachel so Sam doesn't see Robert's message until he
has gotten out of the mic line.
o Sam is speaking for Robert, and Rachel wants to comment on what
Robert said. Unless Sam reads the message as he is walking back
to his seat, Rachel doesn't get to speak.
o Robert wants to say something at the mic, but Sam is having an
important side discussion with the AD.
o Sam is also the minutes taker, and is too busy at the moment
catching up with the lively debate at the mic to relay a question
from Rachel.
o Robert cannot understand what Pete is saying about slide 5, but
Sam doesn't get Pete's attention until Pete is already on slide 7
and Pete doesn't want to go back.
o Chris thought Carl was watching the Jabber room, but Carl was
reading the draft that is being discussed.
o Chris and Carl start the meeting by asking for volunteers to take
minutes and be Jabber scribe. They couldn't find a Jabber scribe,
and it took a lot of begging to get someone to take minutes, so
they figured that was the best they could do.
o Sam is also a presenter, and Robert has a question about Sam's
presentation, but Sam is obviously not looking at the Jabber room
at the time.
o Rachel asks a question through Sam, and Pete replies. Len, who is
next in line at the mic, starts talking before Sam has a chance to
see whether or not Rachel has a follow-up question.
o Robert makes a point about one of Pete's slides, and Pete responds
"I don't think you're looking at the right slide" and continues
with his presentation. Robert cannot reply in a timely fashion
due to the lag in the audio channel.
o Pete starts his presentation by asking for questions to be held
until the end. Robert has a question about slide 5, and is
waiting until the end of the presentation to post the question in
the Jabber room. After slide 7, Len jumps to the mic and
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vehemently disagrees with something that Pete said. Then Lee gets
up to respond to Len, and the three of them go at it for a while,
with Lee getting up again after slide 10. The presentation ends
and is over time, so Carl says "we need to move on", so Robert
never gets to ask his question.
o Chris asks "are there any more questions" while Rachel is typing
furiously, but she doesn't finish before Chris says "I don't see
anyone, thanks Pete, the next speaker is...".
o Rachel comments on Pete's presentation though Sam. Sam doesn't
understand what Rachel is asking, and Len goes to the mic to
explain. However, Len gets his explanation of what Rachel said
wrong and by the time Pete answers Len's interpretation, Rachel
gives up.
o This is the first time Pete is presenting at an IETF meeting, and
Robert has the first question, which is relayed through Sam. Pete
stays silent, not responding the question. Robert can't see
Pete's face to know if Pete is just not understanding what he
asked, is too afraid to answer, is just angry, or something else.
o Pete says something incorrect in his presentation, and Len asks
the folks in the Jabber room about it. Rachel figures out what
Pete should have said, and others in the Jabber room agree. No
one goes to the mic because Pete has left the topic, but only the
people watching Jabber know that the presentation was wrong.
o Pete says something that the AD sitting at the front of the room
(not near a mic) doesn't like, and the AD says a few sentences but
doesn't go to the mic. The chairs try to repeat what the AD says,
get it only approximately right, but the remote attendees do not
hear what really was said and therefore cannot comment
effectively.
o Sam only volunteered to be scribe because no one else would do it,
and isn't sitting close to the mic, and gets tired of getting up
and down all the time, and doesn't really agree with Robert on a
particular issue, so Sam doesn't relay a request from Robert.
o [[[ TODO: More here, of course. ]]]
3.4. Chairs and Floor Control for Remote Attendees
Although the previous section may seem like it is a bit harsh on WG
chairs, the current tools do not give them the kind of control over
remote attendees that they have over local attendees. The chairs can
tell what is happening at the mics, but have much less view into what
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is happening on Jabber, even if they are watching the Jabber room.
Without as much view, they cannot assist the flow of the conversation
as well.
o Carl sees that the Jabber room has an active and useful back-
channel discussion during Pete's provocative presentation. Pete
finishes and asks for questions. Lee and Len rush to the mic
line, and it takes Robert a few seconds to get his question into
the Jabber room and for Sam to go to the mic. Carl tries to
prioritize Sam forward in the line, but Len gets upset when he
does.
o Rachel asks a question, but Sam is not going to the mic to relay
it. In fact, Sam has pretty much stopped paying attention. Chris
cannot do something about the situation without making Sam look
bad.
o Pete has run over time, Robert asks what is supposed to be the
last question, and Pete doesn't understand what Sam said. Carl
cannot tell whether to wait for Robert to rephrase the question or
whether Robert even heard Pete's response.
o In a virtual interim where remote attendees all participate by
voice, someone can be heard typing / eating / talking loudly to
someone else. Carl and Chris try to get that person's attention
over the audio and Jabber, but to no avail. The tool being used
does not have the ability to mute individual participants, so the
meeting is disrupted until that person finally realizes that he or
she is not muted.
o [[[ TODO: More here, of course. ]]]
3.5. Remotely Presenting at Regular IETF Meetings
Some WGs have experimented with remote presentations in recent years
with quite mixed results. For some, it works fine: the remote
presenter speaks, the chair moves the slides forward, and questions
can be heard easily. For others, it is a mess: the local attendees
can't hear the presenter very well, the presenter can't hear
questions or there is a long delay, and it was not clear when the
presenter was waiting for input or there was a lag in the sound.
At a recent meeting that had a remote presenter, a WG had a video
camera set up at the chairs' desk pointed towards the audience so
that the presenter could see who was at the mic; this was considered
to be a great help and a lot friendlier because the presenter could
address the people at the mic by name. They also had the presenter's
head projected on the screen in the room, which led to a lot of jokes
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and discussion of whether seeing the remote presenter caused people
to pay more attention.
Remote presenters have commented how difficult it is to set up their
systems, particularly because they are not sure whether their setup
is working until the moment they are supposed to be presenting. Even
then, the first few minutes of the presentation has a feeling of "is
this really working?".
[[[ TODO: More discussion about experiences with remote presenters.
Include more discussion of where it went well. ]]]
3.6. Experiences with Remote Participation in Virtual Interim Meetings
Because few WGs have virtual interim meetings, there is less
experience with the tools that are commonly used for them. The IETF
has had free use of WebEx for a few years, and some WGs have used
different tools for audio participation. For example, some virtual
interims are held using Skype, others with TeamSpeak, and so on.
So far, the experience with virtual interim meetings has been
reasonably good, and some people say that it is better than for
remote attendees at regular IETF meetings because everyone has the
same problems with getting the group's attention.
One of the often-debated aspects of virtual interim meetings is what
time to have them in order to make them available to all
participants. That topic is (thankfully) not covered in this
document.
[[[ TODO: More discussion about experiences with virtual interims.
Focus on differences between the all-in-one systems like WebEx and
the cobble-together systems where there is an audio feed with no
floor control plus pre-distributed slideware. ]]]
4. Requirements for Supporting Remote Participation in Face-to-Face
Meetings
This section covers the functional specification for effective remote
participation in meetings where some members are in a face-to-face
meeting, such as the regular IETF meetings and interim WG meetings
that are held in a meeting room. Some of the requirements in this
section overlap with those in Section 5, but many are unique to
meetings that have a significant physical presence.
There is an assumption in this section that the meeting chairs will
continue to control the flow of the discussion. That is, if a
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presenter is speaking and a remote attendee wants to ask a question,
the request to do so goes to the chair, not to the presenter.
**Requirement 01-01**: The specifications SHOULD rely upon IETF and
other open standards for all communications and interactions wherever
possible.
**Requirement 01-02**: All tools in the RPS SHOULD be able to be run
on the widest possible array of computers. This means that they need
to be able to be run as an application, from any modern web browser,
or from the command line of all of (at least) MacOS version 10.6 or
later, Windows 7 or later, and any common Linux distribution produced
in 2010 or later. [[[ TODO: Do we need to include IOS and Android
platforms in that list? ]]]
A common complaint with the current RPS is that the streaming audio
can take more than 10 seconds (and sometimes as much as 30 seconds)
to reach the remote attendee. This causes many of the problems
listed in Section 3.3. **Requirement 01-03**: Audio, video, instant
messaging, and slide streams going to and from remote attendees
SHOULD be delivered in as close to real-time as is practically
possible.
[[[ TODO: Proposed replacement for this requirement is "Delays MUST
be less than X milliseconds greater than the network delay to the
remote attendee." Two values for X have been proposed: 200 and 500.
]]]
[[[ TODO: A possibly different way to set the requirement is "The
audio MUST achieve a MOS (Mean Opinion Score) of 3.5 or better." And
there should probably be a discussion of a possible equivalent for
video. A proposal was "320x240 @ 15fps". ]]]
**Requirement 01-04**: Audible echo in the audio stream MUST be
damped and/or eliminated by the tools. [[[ TOOD: Proposed
replacement: the RPS MUST recognize audible echo and automatically
take measures to reduce it to a level which won't distract listeners.
]]]
4.1. Registration for Remote Participation
There has been periodic discussion of whether remote attendees are or
are not bound by the "note well" text that local attendees are bound
to. By requiring registration before participating, remote attendees
can be better bound to that text.
The cost for remote attendees to register, if any, is not covered in
this document but will instead be determined by the IETF at a later
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time. There are many ideas on the subject (tiered costs for
different services, no cost at all for the first year, and others),
but the effects of different cost structures is beyond the scope of
this document.
**Requirement 01-05**: All remote attendees MUST register with the
IETF Secretariat before using any of the RPS tools described here.
**Requirement 01-06**: The RPS MUST have a system where a remote
attendee can register their name and have that name be used in the
instant messaging and video systems. Registration must only need to
be done once for an entire regular IETF meeting.
**Requirement 01-07**: A remote attendee who doesn't want to
identified MUST be able to use an anonymized name when appearing in
video and instant messaging. [[[TODO: Is the anonymity appropriate
in light of the "note well" and floor control requirements? ]]]
**Requirement 01-08**: The RPS MUST gracefully handle multiple
attendees who have the same name.
4.2. Technologies
4.2.1. Audio
A few requirements come from the IETF's current use of audio in
meetings. Meeting rooms have many mics: one or two for the chairs,
one for the presenter, and at least one for other local attendees to
ask questions. Plenaries have many more mics, both at the front of
the room and in the audience.
Note that the requirements here assume a very large change in the way
that remote participation will happen. Instead of a remote attendee
typing something into the Jabber room that someone will repeat at a
mic in the room, remote attendees will use their own mics to speak to
the meeting.
**Requirement 01-09**: Remote attendees MUST be able to hear what is
said by local attendees and chairs at any mic in the meeting.
**Requirement 01-10**: Remote attendees MUST be able to speak
directly to a meeting without going through a local attendee, and
have their speaking be heard by local attendees. (Note that the
ability to speak is controlled by the chair; see Section 4.3.2.)
**Requirement 01-11**: Local attendees MUST be able to determine
which remote attendee is speaking, unless the remote attendee is
using an anonymized display name (see Requirement 01-07).
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**Requirement 01-12**: The RPS MUST give a remote attendee who is
allowed to speak a clear signal when they should and should not
speak.
IETF meetings happen in venues such as hotels and conference centers,
most of which have their own audio setups. The IETF Secretariat
contracts with those venues for the use of some or all of their audio
system. **Requirement 01-13**: The audio system used by the RPS MUST
be able to integrate with systems commonly used in the venues used
for IETF meetings.
4.2.2. Video
The RFP that preceded the current document, [RPS-RFP], discusses
video as a requirement. The IETF has experimented with one-way and
two-way video at some meetings in the past few years. Remote
attendees have said that seeing people in the meetings gave them a
better understanding of the meeting; at a recent meeting, a remote
presenter was able to see the people in line at the mic and was
better able to interact with them. [[[ TODO: determine how much of
this is needed for effective participation. ]]]
**Requirement 01-14**: Remote attendees MUST be able to see the
presenter at a meeting. **Requirement 01-15**: Remote attendees MUST
be able to see local attendees at any mic in the meeting.
**Requirement 01-16**: The RPS MUST have the capability of showing
video of the remote attendee who is speaking over the audio to the
local attendees. **Requirement 01-17**: A remote attendee who is
speaking MUST be able to choose what is shown to local attendees:
video of them speaking, a still picture of their face, or just their
name. **Requirement 01-18**: The RPS MUST give a remote attendee a
clear indication when their video image is being shown to the local
attendees.
[[[ TODO: Is there a requirement that IETF video integrate with the
venue video, if any? ]]]
4.2.3. Instant Messaging
As noted earlier, while the current tool's Jabber room is a good way
to get questions to the mic, it also becomes a second communications
channel that only a few people in the room are participating in.
This document does not address how to prevent that problem (or
whether it really is much of a problem). The instant messaging
system is also useful for remote users to ask about the status of the
room ("is anyone there?").
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**Requirement 01-19**: The instant messaging system MUST allow anyone
to see all messages in the WG's or BoF's room. **Requirement 01-20**:
The instant messaging system MUST allow any registered user (even
those registered to use anonymous names) to post messages in the WG's
or BoF's room.
Someone coming into a meeting late requires context for which
messages in an instant messaging room are recent and which are old.
**Requirement 01-21**: The date and time that a message appears in a
room MUST be retained. Instant messaging clients MUST be able to
show an indication of the date and time for all messages.
[[[ TODO: Should there be multiple rooms for a meeting? There were
many requests for a separate "speak into the mic" room, but that is
not needed if the requirements in Section 4.2.1 are met. Is there a
need for other rooms? ]]]
[[[ TODO: Should non-registered people be allowed to read the IM
traffic in real time, given that anyone can register anonymously?
Should people registered anonymously be allowed to post in IM rooms?
]]]
4.2.4. Slide Presentations
In many current remote participation systems, slide presentations and
the video coming from in-meeting cameras are sent as two separate
streams (called the "slide stream" and the "camera stream"). The
slide stream is usually much lower bandwidth than the camera stream,
so remote attendees with limited bandwidth can choose to watch just
the slides but not the local attendees. Further, separating the
streams allows remote attendees to see the slide stream and the
camera streams in separate windows that can be independently sized.
**Requirement 01-22**: The RPS MUST transmit the slide stream
separately from the camera stream. **Requirement 01-23**: The slide
stream MUST represent the slides as they are projected in the room,
allowing the presenter to go back and forth, as well as to edit
slides in real time.
**Requirement 01-24**: It MUST be made clear to the remote attendees
which set of slides, and which slide number, is being currently
shown.
[[[ TODO: If the slides will be visible to remote attendees as they
are presented, is there a requirement that presenters be able to use
the equivalent of a laser pointer? ]]]
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4.2.5. Slide Distribution
Slides are available to local and remote attendees on the IETF
servers before and during regular IETF meetings. This service is
useful to all attendees who want to be prepared for WG meetings. The
slides are not only used by remote attendees listening to the WG
meeting; it is common for local attendees to download the slides and
view them on their laptops during meetings instead of having to read
them at the front of the room.
**Requirement 01-25**: The RPS MUST be able to handle both PDF and
PowerPoint for distributed slides. [[[ TODO: Is there a requirement
to support other formats? ]]] [[[ TODO: For the distributed slides,
is there a requirement that animation in PowerPoint be supported, or
just static slides? ]]]
**Requirement 01-26**: The RPS MUST automatically convert PowerPoint
presentations to PDF and make both available for distribution at the
same time.
**Requirement 01-27**: Presenters MUST be able to update their slides
on the IETF site up to just before their presentation, if such update
is allowed by the chairs.
**Requirement 01-28**: Chairs MUST be able to approve or disapprove
of any slide submission or updates, with the default being that all
submissions are allowed.
4.2.6. Shared Document Editing
In some WG meetings, there is an attempt to edit a document with
input from the local attendees. This is typically done for proposed
charter changes, but sometimes happens on a WG document or the
meeting's agenda. This is usually unsuccessful, given the amount of
text and the size of what can be displayed on the screen. In recent
meetings, shared document editing has been used for editing charters
and for taking minutes of meetings.
**Requirement 01-29**: It MUST be easy to start a new shared document
and to import existing text into a shared document.
**Requirement 01-30**: Shared real-time editing of text-only
documents MUST be supported. This system must allow at least three
people to have write access and hundreds of people to have read
access to any particular document.
**Requirement 01-31**: Remote attendees MUST be able to be either the
writers or the readers of shared documents.
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**Requirement 01-32**: Those with read access MUST be able to see the
edits made by those with write access within less that five seconds
after each edit.
**Requirement 01-33**: It MUST be easy to change the permissions for
who gets write access to a document during an editing session.
[[[ TODO: Is this also needed for non-text documents? If so, in what
formats? For example, is drawing on a whiteboard needed? ]]]
4.3. Tools
4.3.1. Requirements for Remote Participation
**Requirement 01-34**: Remote attendees MUST be able to easily find
all the material they need to effectively participate, including
links to audio, video, instant messaging, slides, and so on. This
material MUST be available well before the time of the meeting. The
page with the meeting material SHOULD allow the remote attendee to
easily perform a time conversion to and from the local time at the
IETF meeting.
**Requirement 01-35**: A remote attendee who comes to a meeting late
MUST be able to tell what is happening in the meeting. In specific,
there MUST be an indication if the meeting has not started, if the
meeting is happening (even if there is silence on the mics), and if
the meeting is over.
Remote attendees need to be able to test the remote participation
setup before a regular meeting, and even during the meeting.
**Requirement 01-36**: There MUST be a constantly-running testing
service that covers all interactive tools (audio, video, slide
display, and so on) for at least a week before the meeting begins.
**Requirement 01-37**: The testing service MUST run throughout the
meeting so that last-minute joiners can test their systems.
**Requirement 01-38**: The testing service SHOULD allow remote
attendees to also test whether their outgoing audio, video, and slide
control works.
**Requirement 01-39**: Remote attendees SHOULD be able to easily
contact the IETF Secretariat if they find problems with any of the
RPS tools, and to get fairly rapid response. **Requirement 01-40**:
Similarly, local attendees SHOULD be able to easily contact the IETF
Secretariat if there are RPS problems in the meeting rooms.
Regular IETF meetings are more than just a group of WG meetings.
Remote attendees may want to participate in the other parts of a
regular meeting as well. **Requirement 01-41**: The RPS tools MUST be
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available for AD-sponsored lunch meetings scheduled by the IETF
Secretariat.
At many IETF meetings, some local attendees act as remote attendees
in WG meetings that they are not sitting in, so they can attend two
WGs at once. **Requirement 01-42**: Any tools that are used by remote
attendees MUST also be available to local attendees as well.
Many remote attendees will be in places with limited bandwidth.
**Requirement 01-43**: All streaming information from the RPS MUST be
usable over slow Internet connections. [[[ TODO: We need to define
"slow" here, or drop the requirement.]]]
4.3.2. Floor Control for Chairs
Newcomers to regular IETF meetings often expect the floor control in
WG meetings to be fairly straight-forward. By Tuesday, they might be
shaking their heads, wondering why some people cut into the mic
lines, why some people get up to the mics after the chair has closed
the line, why some people ignore presenters' requests to hold
questions to the end, and so on. Mixing remote attendees into this
social structure will be a daunting task, but one that has been dealt
with in many remote participation systems.
It is not yet clear how the set of remote attendees would be treated
for queueing. Some tools have each remote attendee being considered
separately, while others pool all remote attendees into one group.
This affects the chair knowing and being able to act on the order
that remote attendees ask to speak.
**Requirement 01-44**: Remote attendees MUST have an easy and
standardized way of requesting the attention of the chair when the
remote attendee wants to speak. The remote attendee MUST also be
able to easily cancel an attention request. (Note that Requirement
01-35 implies that someone is watching the request queue, something
that does not happen consistently with the current tools.)
A remote attendee might want to indicate that they are asking a
question of the presenter, or answering a question that someone else
asked at the mic, or want to bring up a new topic. **Requirement
01-45**: The RPS MUST allow a remote attendee's request for attention
to include an optional short text string.
**Requirement 01-46**: Remote attendee's requests MUST be part of the
floor control tool, not in the instant messaging system.
**Requirement 01-47**: The chair MUST be able to see all requests
from remote attendees to speak at any time during the entire meeting
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(not just during presentations) in the floor control system.
**Requirement 01-48**: The floor control system MUST allow a chair to
easily turn off and on an individual's ability to speak over the
audio at any time.
**Requirement 01-49**: The floor control system MUST allow a chair to
easily mute all remote attendees.
**Requirement 01-50**: The floor control system MUST allow a chair to
easily allow all remote attendees to speak without requesting
permission; that is, the chair MUST be able to easily turn on all
remote attendees mics at once.
It is common for a chair to leave the room, to have a side discussion
with an AD, or to become a presenter. They should be able to do so
without having to do a handoff of the floor control capability.
**Requirement 01-51**: The floor control system for the chair MUST be
able to be run by at least two users at the same time.
**Requirement 01-52**: The RPS MUST authenticate users who can use
the floor control system in a particular meeting using simple
passwords.
**Requirement 01-53**: The IETF Secretariat MUST be able to easily
set up the individuals allowed to use the floor control system for a
particular meeting and to change the settings at any time, including
during the meeting. [[[ TODO: Should those who are given floor
control be allowed to augment that list to meet changing needs
without going back to the Secretariat? ]]]
[[[ TODO: Is it possible to tell if a remote attendee who is speaking
loses network connectivity? If so, maybe this can be shown to the
chair. ]]]
**Requirement 01-54**: The chair SHOULD be able to monitor the sound
levels of the audio being delivered to remote attendees to be sure
that they can hear what is going on in the room.
4.3.3. Archiving
Archived recordings of the events of the meetings are valuable for
remote attendees who are not able to hear everything in real time.
**Requirement 01-55**: The RPS MUST support storage and distribution
of recordings of the audio, video, and slide presentations for all
sessions after IETF meetings. **Requirement 01-56**: Transcripts of
the instant messaging for all meetings MUST be kept for distribution
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after IETF meetings. **Requirement 01-57**: The recordings and
transcripts SHOULD be made available during the meetings, within a
day of them being made.
**Requirement 01-58**: Users MUST be able to easily find the archives
of the recordings and instant messaging transcripts of a particular
WG or BoF session at a particular meeting.
**Requirement 01-59**: The RPS SHOULD support indexing of archived
audio and video for particular events in meetings such as when
speakers change.
4.3.4. Transcription
**Requirement 01-60**: Transmitting real-time transcription to remote
attendees MUST be supported. The lag in transmission MUST be less
than five seconds.
4.3.5. Polling
The common IETF method of assessing support is a straw poll,
sometimes managed by audible humming, sometimes by raising hands.
**Requirement 01-61**: A system for polling meeting participants,
including remote attendees at the same time, MUST be provided. It
MUST be easy to set up a simple poll, and it must be easy for all
participants to find the poll and participate. [[[ TODO: Should the
RPS also provide a tool that allows yes / no / abstain indications,
which comes a lot closer to "voting" than currently is common? ]]]
4.4. Use by IETF Leadership
The requirements for bodies like the IESG and IAB to use the RPS
during regular IETF meetings are similar to those of most WGs. The
main difference is that they need a way to limit who can participate
remotely. **Requirement 01-62**: The IETF Secretariat MUST be able to
easily limit remote access to meetings on a room-by-room basis.
**Requirement 01-63**: The IETF Secretariat must be able to limit
participants in restricted meetings using a simple authentication
mechanism.
4.5. Plenaries
At recent IETF meetings, there has been very little input from remote
attendees even when there is a lot in the room, but that may be due
to the current setup, not lack of interest.
[[[ TODO: Are there any requirements that are special to plenaries
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that are not covered above? Are there requirements not listed above
that mostly come from plenaries that would also apply to very large
WGs? ]]]
5. Requirements for Supporting All-Remote Meetings
The requirements for meetings that are all remote (that is, with no
local attendees) are mostly a subset of the requirements for remote
participation in a face-to-face meeting. This section highlights the
differences from Section 4.
Video for all-remote meetings may be more important than for face-to-
face meetings. [[[ TODO: Determine if this is true and, if so, the
additional requirements for all the remote attendees. ]]]
Nearly all current remote participation systems have some way for
changing slides to be presented to all remote attendees. [[[ TODO: Is
this a requirement for the IETF RPS? ]]]
Attendance at virtual interim meetings is supposed to be taken, but
this is sometimes ignored. A system that is probably at least
somewhat different than that in Section 4.3.1 may be needed for
collecting attendance at virtual interim meetings.
[[[ TODO: What are the requirements for registering? Virtual interim
meetings are generally considered to have a very different feeling
than regular IETF meetings; does this affect the idea of
registration? ]]]
[[[ TODO: Are there different floor control issues for all-remote
meetings? ]]]
6. IANA Considerations
None. [[ ...and thus this section can be removed before publication
as an RFC... ]]
7. Security Considerations
People who participate remotely in face-to-face IETF meetings might
expect the same level of privacy as they have when they participate
directly in those meetings. Some of the proposed tools might cause
it to be easier to know which WGs a remote attendee was following.
When RPS tools are deployed, the IETF should describe the privacy
implications of using such a tool to the users so they can decide
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whether or not to use the tools.
The eventual RPS tools will have some user authentication that will
associate people with actions. For example, a remote user might need
to authenticate to the system in order to give a presentation or
speak during a session. The credentials needed for this
authentication will need to be managed in a secure fashion, both by
the system and by the people who are being identified.
8. Acknowledgements
Many of the ideas in this document were contributed by members of the
IETF community based on their experiences during recent IETF
meetings. There are also many contributions from people on the
vmeet@ietf.org mailing list as well as WG chairs.
Some of the text in this document originated in the request for
proposals that was issued by the IAOC that led to this document.
9. Informative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2418] Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.
[RFC3920] Saint-Andre, P., Ed., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
Protocol (XMPP): Core", RFC 3920, October 2004.
[RFC3921] Saint-Andre, P., Ed., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
Protocol (XMPP): Instant Messaging and Presence",
RFC 3921, October 2004.
[RPS-RFP] IAOC, "Request for Proposals for Requirements Development
for Remote Participation Services", 2011, <http://
iaoc.ietf.org/documents/
RPS-Specifications-RFP-2011-10-19.pdf>.
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Author's Address
Paul Hoffman
VPN Consortium
Email: paul.hoffman@vpnc.org
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