2021-01-26-rsoc-minutes
slides-interim-2022-rfcedprog-11-sessa-2021-01-26-rsoc-minutes-00

RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC)
January 26, 2021 RSOC Meeting

Reported by: Cindy Morgan, IETF Secretariat

ATTENDEES
---------------------------------
 Sarah Banks (RSOC Chair) 
 Jay Daley (IETF LLC Board Liaison, non-voting)
 Tony Hansen 
 Cullen Jennings (IAB Lead)
 John Levine, (Temporary RFC Series Project Manager, non-voting)
 Cindy Morgan (Scribe, non-voting)
 Mark Nottingham 
 Peter Saint-Andre

GUEST
---------------------------------
 Sandy Ginoza (RFC Production Center)

REGRETS
---------------------------------
 Adam Roach

RSOC DECISIONS: 2021
---------------------------------
  - 2020 Decisions: 
<https://www.iab.org/wp-content/IAB-uploads/2021/01/rsoc-decisions-2020.txt>

  - 2019 Decisions: 
<https://www.iab.org/wp-content/IAB-uploads/2020/01/rsoc-decisions-2019.txt>

ACTION ITEM REVIEW
---------------------------------

  Done:

  - 2020-06-22: John Levine to document the factors that appear to 
    contribute to the very low adoption by authors of v3 XML as a 
    submission format.

  - 2020-11-16: Jay Daley to digest the data from the submission 
    formats survey and summarize it for the RSOC.

  - 2020-12-14: Cindy Morgan to propose a timeline and process to 
    select the RSOC Chair for 2021.
    * Deadline: 2020-12-18

  In Progress:

  - 2020-12-14: John Levine to send a message to the community asking 
    for input on how to handle version control for RFC output formats 
    that have been regenerated.
    * Deadline: 2021-01-29

  - 2020-09-21: Jay Daley, John Levine, Henrik Levkowetz, Peter Saint-
    Andre, and Robert Sparks to work with Sandy Ginoza to propose a 
    minimum profile of v3 XML tags that the RPC would add before 
    publication of an RFC if they were not included by the authors.
    * Deadline: 2021-02

  - 2020-12-14: Sarah Banks to forward Heather Flanagan's previous RPC 
    review to the RSOC.
    * Deadline: 2020-12-21

  New: 

  - 2021-01-26: John Levine to start a discussion with the community about 
    whether the XML of an RFC can be changed as long as the text remains 
    immutable.
    * Deadline: 2021-02-08

  - 2021-01-26: Jay Daley and John Levine will work with the RPC to propose 
    changes to the boilerplate AUTH48 message that is sent to authors and to 
    the text on the RFC Editor site, in order to clarify that this is 
    approval stage and what needs to be approved.
    * Deadline: 2021-02


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

1. Administrivia

  The minutes of the 2020-12-14 RSOC meeting were approved.


2. v3 Issues and Tools

  Jay Daley drafted a report on the authoring survey and sent it to the RSOC 
  for review. The report includes a number of recommendations on how to 
  encourage authors to submit v3 XML. Once comments have been incorporated 
  from RSOC, the Tools Team, and the Tools Architecture and Strategy Team, 
  Jay plans to make the report public. 

  John Levine reported that he has drafted a message to the community asking 
  for input on how to handle version control for RFC output formats that 
  have been regenerated. He plans to send the message out by 2021-01-29.


3. RFC XML and Style Guide change management team

  Peter Saint-Andre reported that the RFC XML and Style Guide change 
  management team has met twice so far, and is working through some of the 
  stickier issues. At their next meeting, they will put together a work plan 
  on how to proceed with the remaining open issues in GitHub 
  (https://github.com/rfc-format/draft-iab-xml2rfc-v3-bis/issues).

  Mark Nottingham noted that this team is making a proposal, not making 
  resolutions. He suggested that it would be good for the proposal to 
  include a background document (perhaps an IAB-stream RFC) with the 
  rationale for the proposed changes.

  In November, John Levine published a blog post 
  (https://www.ietf.org/blog/rfc-v3-xml-issues/) on the RFC v3 XML Issues 
  that discussed the possibility of changing the XML of published RFCs in 
  order to use a stable v3 XML and retroactively update some of the semantic 
  markup. Both issues come back to the idea that RFCs, once published, are 
  immutable. The switch to XML as the canonical format has introduced some 
  new issues that may require a more nuanced approach that maintains the 
  immutability of the text of an RFC while allowing for limited 
  circumstances under which the formatting and/or semantic markup of an RFC 
  can change after publication.  

  Mark Nottingham said that if there was community buy-in to allow the XML 
  to be updated within certain constraints, that would allow for significant 
  flexibility. John Levine replied that there is a small number of people 
  who are very resistant to that idea. Mark suggested that having a public 
  conversation on the topic might lead to some kind of rough consensus.

  * Action item: John Levine to start a discussion with the community about 
    whether the XML of an RFC can be changed as long as the text remains 
    immutable.


4. RPC Review 

  John Levine noted that he is still waiting for Sarah Banks to send him a 
  copy of the RPC's previous review.


5. AUTH48 Process

  The RSOC discussed what exactly authors should be asked to review and 
  sign off on during the AUTH48 process. Sandy Ginoza suggested several 
  options:

    (a) Authors should be asked to review all output formats of RFCs.
    (b) The RPC should tell authors which output version to review.
    (c) The RPC should ask authors which version(s) they reviewed so 
        they have that information if questions arise later.

  Mark Nottingham said that asking for review is not the right way to phrase 
  the questions. Authors need to know that the XML is the canonical 
  format, and that there are implications of not reviewing it. He noted 
  that during the publication of the last RFC he authored, he learned that 
  there are many changes made to the XML that may not be obvious when 
  looking at other formats.

  Jay Daley said that AUTH48 is about reviewing the content to make sure 
  that it has not changed, reviewing the output formats that show how the 
  content will be presented, and reviewing the semantic markup of the 
  content.

  Cullen Jennings suggested that the RPC is really looking for approval 
  during AUTH48, rather than review. AUTH48 is the authors' last chance to 
  make changes to the document before the final version is approved for 
  publication.

  * Action item: Jay Daley and John Levine will work with the RPC to propose 
    changes to the boilerplate AUTH48 message that is sent to authors and to 
    the text on the RFC Editor site, in order to clarify that this is 
    approval stage and what needs to be approved.


6. Next RSOC Meeting

  Since the next regularly-scheduled RSOC meeting is on a holiday in the 
  U.S., Cindy Morgan will send out a Doodle poll to schedule the RSOC's 
  February meeting.


7. Executive Session: RSOC Chair

  The RSOC Chair selection was discussed in an executive session.