Minutes IETF102: rfcplusplus
minutes-102-rfcplusplus-00

Minutes from RFCplusplus BoF
Montreal, QC, CA, 2018-07-16

Chairs: Sean Turner and Gonzalo Camarillo
Note taker: Andrew Sullivan

The chairs opened the meeting, presented the Note Well, and ensured
that minutes would be taken.

The chairs emphasized that the discussion needed to be professional
and needed to address all the streams.  The chairs emphasised that the
effort is for discussion to benefit all the communities' activities.

The chairs asked some questions, because it was not clear whether
there is a problem or what it would be:

    1.  Is there one or more issue?
    2.  Are the issue(s) in (1) worth fixing?
    3.  If it is worthwhile, how would we address the issue(s)?

Having framed the terms of discussion, the chairs opened the mic for
discussion.

Considerable discussion followed directly related to the three
questions, including attempts to narrow the questions and to make
clear whether the audience is internal or external.  There was more
than one concern raised that there is no problem statement, and
several attempts to create one.

There were questions raised about the legitimacy of having the BoF in
the first place, on the grounds that the decisions rest entirely with
the RFC editor rather than the community.

There were several occasions where various people in the room clapped
in response to various positions stated at the microphone.  Some
(other?) people appeared to do this ironically as a comment on the
practice itself.  This is noted for the minutes in case people
intended the applause to be part of the discussion, but the intention
of the action was not clear.

There were arguments presented to the effect that the RFC series
needed to link to its founding impulse; there were also arguments to
the effect that there is a problem that is a threat to the relevance
of the organization (whatever that organization is).  There were
additional suggestions that the issues around the RFC series, if there
are any, are in fact just proxies for issues with the source body (and
particularly, the IETF).

There were suggestions that the fundamental problem had to do with the
relationship amongst the content, the audience, the streams, and the
publication technology in use.

Several comments at the mic either hinted at or discussed an issue of
the ambiguity of the meaning of "RFC", and whether "RFC" is a "brand
of the IETF" or something else, and what that would mean.

There were observations about the apparent judgement involved in
deciding that some RFCs are more important than others based on the
stream or category.

The chairs asked for some observations from the RFC Series Editor, and
determined that there was no potential consensus to judge and
therefore did not attempt to do so.  The sponsoring AD did not have
additional actions to pursue, and the chairs closed the meeting.