2019-03-28-rsoc-minutes
slides-interim-2022-rfcedprog-09-sessa-2019-03-28-rsoc-minutes-00

RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC)
March 28, 2019 RSOC Meeting

Reported by: Cindy Morgan, IETF Secretariat

ATTENDEES
---------------------------------
  Sarah Banks (Chair) 
  Heather Flanagan (RSE, non-voting)
  Christian Huitema (incoming IAB Lead)
  Cindy Morgan (Scribe, non-voting)
  Mark Nottingham 
  Adam Roach
  Peter Saint-Andre
  Robert Sparks (outgoing IAB Lead) 
  Portia Wenze-Danley (IETF LLC Board Liaison, non-voting)

REGRETS
---------------------------------
  Tony Hansen 

MINUTES
---------------------------------

1. Administrivia

  The minutes of the 2019-02-19 RSOC meeting were approved.

  Christian Huitema will be the new IAB Lead for the RSOC. Mark 
  Nottingham will replace Robert Sparks as the second IAB member on the 
  RSOC.

2. Agenda Bash

  Sarah Banks noted that she had some slides for an executive session at 
  the end of the meeting.

3. Fifty Years of RFCs

  Heather Flanagan reported that she received feedback from John Klensin 
  on draft-flanagan-fiftyyears-02; once she incorporates that feedback, 
  she will ask the RSOC to endorse sending the document to the IAB for 
  publication.

4. The Big Picture – Operations and Project Management

- SLA	

  Heather Flanagan answered questions about the current SLA and 
  described how the publication process works.

  - How is the publication process being run?
    - https://www.rfc-editor.org/pubprocess/
  - What are the lines of responsibility?
    - RPC manages the publication process
    - RSE has general oversight, but does not manage any day-to-day 
      operations
    - Stream managers can (and do) request exceptions

  Heather Flanagan noted that she doe not edit documents, because she is 
  the arbiter of disputes between authors and editors.

  Project plans and milestones are reported via:

  - Weekly meetings between the RSE and RPC
  - Automated email weekly and monthly to the IESG, IAB
  - Monthly updates of the SLA report
  - Monthly update via the IAB liaison report (cc: RSOC)
  - Formal reporting at each IETF

  Progress against the SLA is measured via the SLA chart, periodic 
  discussions with the IESG, and a new vendor satisfaction survey about 
  the RPC.

  Publication rates are currently not up to SLA expectations. The RPC 
  does more than just publish documents; they also do tools testing, 
  plan and execute tutorials, handle subpoenas, make ongoing website and 
  process improvements, etc. This efforts are not measured in the SLA. 
  Various budget decisions have not survived the transitions from IAOC 
  to IETF LLC.

  The RPC has been directed by the RSE and earlier stream managers to 
  prioritize the format work above the publication process, but 
  unfortunately, this exception was not well-documented. The RPC has 
  added editorial staff, but the funds and level of training required 
  limits how many FTEs can be added and how effective they can be. 
  Knowing that more resources would be needed to meet the SLA during the 
  transition process, the RSOC in 2016 asked to add up to 3.25 FTE; the 
  IAOC only approved adding 1 FTE.

  * Action: The RSOC will discuss alternatives to help get documents 
    into better shape before they hit the RFC Editor Queue, in order to 
    ease the burden on the RPC.

  Heather Flanagan noted that there are two categories of documents that 
  take more time to edit. The first is anything that is in a cluster, 
  because when there are a large number of documents with 
  interdependencies, they have to be edited in parallel to ensure that 
  the terminology matches in all of the documents. The second is 
  anything with a YANG module; the RPC was instructed to use a certain 
  set of tools to extract the YANG modules from documents, but it turns 
  out that there is only very rough consensus in the YANG community 
  about those tools, and the editors get caught between the people who 
  wrote the tools to work a certain way and the authors who don't like 
  how the tools work.

  Mark Nottingham noted that the amount of time needed to train an 
  editor had been mentioned as a barrier, and asked if there was 
  anything more detailed than the RFC Style Guide that describes the 
  editing process for a document.

  * Action: Heather Flanagan to put together a more complete process 
    document on the process of editing an RFC for publication.

  Peter Saint-Andre noted that the time spent on things not in the SLA 
  could be use to help make the argument about the need to increase the 
  RPC headcount. Sarah Banks said that the spike for non-SLA items is 
  different for every item. Heather Flanagan said that when there are 
  extraordinary events that require a lot of time that is not counted 
  towards the SLA, she mentions them in her monthly reports.

  * Action: Heather Flanagan to add an agenda item on running through 
    the SLA to the next RSOC agenda.

  Heather Flanagan proposed the following SLA change and exception  
  process:

  The SLA will be reviewed annually (in January), specifically with an 
  eye towards adjusting the targets based on both the activity of the 
  past year and any expected changes in the coming year. The RSE will 
  discuss the SLA and propose any changes with the following entities:

  - Stream Managers
  - RSOC
  - RSE
  - IETF Executive Director
  - Vendor

  Final approval of any SLA requires consensus between the Stream 
  Managers and the RSOC and acceptance from the vendor.

  * Action: The RSOC will talk more about the statement, "Final approval 
    of any SLA requires consensus between the Stream Managers and the 
    RSOC and acceptance from the vendor."

5. Contract Review

  Sarah Banks reported that RFC 6635 Section 3.1 states that the RSOC 
  would "perform annual reviews of the RSE and report the result of 
  these reviews to the IAB." In 2015, the Internet Society human 
  resources department expressed concern that this would raise questions 
  about whether the RSE was a contractor or an employee. The outcome of 
  this was that the RSE remains a contractor, and a performance review 
  has not been performed since 2015.

  Sarah Banks noted that RFC 6635 has not been updated, and some people 
  are questioning what is going on. The RSE continues to evaluate the 
  RPC. The RSOC has discussed "how things are going" and "are we getting 
  what we paid for," but may be able to to better. Sarah proposes that 
  the RSOC begin an annual RSE Goals review:

  - Performed annually by RSOC, communicated by RSOC to IAB
  - Yearly, the RSOC works with the RSE to document a list of stated 
    goals for the upcoming 12 months
    - This list of goals can/may change, and changes are reviewed 
      and approved by RSOC
    - The list of goals is then updated, the changes noted and the 
      revised list is shared with the IAB
    - This list should be created and reviewed at the March IETF 
      meeting, or in a monthly meeting prior to the July IETF 
      meeting
  - In the July IETF meeting, the RSOC should:
      - Approve the review of the prior year’s goals, and
      - Approve the new list of goals for the upcoming 12 months, and
      - Share both outcomes with the IAB

  With this proposal, the review is about the goals themselves rather 
  than the contractor.

6. Executive Sesssion