2021-06-21-rsoc-minutes
slides-interim-2022-rfcedprog-11-sessa-2021-06-21-rsoc-minutes-00

RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC)
June 21, 2021 RSOC Meeting

Reported by: Cindy Morgan, IETF Secretariat

ATTENDEES
---------------------------------
- Sarah Banks 
- 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)
- Adam Roach
- David Schinazi 
- Peter Saint-Andre (RSOC Chair) 

GUEST
---------------------------------
- Alice Russo (RFC Production Center)


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
---------------------------------

  In Progress:

  - 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: 2021-07

  - 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. (NOTE: Depends on action item for "RFC XML and 
    Style Guide change management team," above.)
    * Deadline: 2021-07

  - 2021-03-15: John Levine and Peter Saint-Andre to discuss the 
    prioritization and time commitment needed to put together an end-to-
    end analysis to ensure that v3 XML can be used effectively and 
    seamlessly at all stages of the authoring process (Recommendation 
    8), and report back to the RSOC.
    * Deadline 2021-07

  - 2021-05-17 : Peter Saint-Andre, Jay Daley, and John Levine to chat 
    with the RPC and recent authors about their perspectives on the 
    GitHub experiment, and report back to RSOC. 
    * Deadline: 2021-07


  Closed:

  - 2021-04-19: Peter Saint-Andre to start a thread on the RSOC list 
    about updating the list of "Current Activities" on the RSOC web 
    page.


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

1. Administrivia

  The minutes of the 2021-05-17 RSOC meeting were approved.


2. RFC XML and Style Guide change management team

  Peter Saint-Andre reported that the RFC XML and Style Guide change 
  management team is making progress to close issues in GitHub. He 
  estimated that it will take another 2-3 weeks to work through the 
  remaining backlog.

  The team is continuing to work with the RPC 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.

  Jay Daley asked if the scope of proposed changes to the minimum set of 
  tags just includes the tags mentioned in RFC 7991, or if it includes 
  tags that were added after 7991 was published. John Levine replied 
  that they are mostly looking at things that were added after RFC 7991 
  was published, but there are a few that were mentioned in 7991. Jay 
  responded that it would be good to document whether a particular tag 
  was mentioned in 7991 or not.

  All of the proposed changes will be documented in a 7991bis document, 
  which will go through a community review process.


3. v3 Issues and Tools

  John Levine said that he can begin sketching out a framework for a 
  discussion with the community about whether the XML of an RFC can be 
  changed as long as the text remains immutable, but it will be 
  difficult to make much progress until the RFC XML and Style Guide 
  change management team finishes their work.


4. Recommendations Following From the I-D Authors Survey

  * Recommendation 5:  The process by which authors review RPC changes 
    should be examined with a view towards understanding what tooling is 
    required if this process is to use XML and not plain text as the 
    common format.

  John Levine said that he believes that the most recent GitHub 
  experiment worked fairly well because there was an author who was 
  familiar with GitHub and an editor who was experienced in managing 
  tickets; without those factors, it might not have worked as well. He 
  suggested looking at the things that made the experiment successful 
  and encouraging other people to do it that way.

  Alice Russo noted that there is already feedback from authors on some 
  of this in the RSE Wiki: 
  https://www.rfc-editor.org/rse/wiki/doku.php?id=github_exp_2021_feedback

  * Recommendation 8:  An end-to-end analysis is carried out to ensure 
    that v3 XML can be used effectively and seamlessly at all stages of 
    the authoring process.

  Jay Daley suggested reaching out to the various tools developers to 
  get a dataset of information about each of the tools, and use that to 
  check for v2 support versus v3  support compatibility. The dataset for 
  would be maintained directly by the tool developers.

  * Recommendation 9:  A significant minority want to use Markdown or 
    similar and a strategic decision is needed on whether or not this 
    should be "officially" supported either in some stages or in the 
    full end-to-end authoring process. (see also Q20)

  Jay Daley reported that he had a conversation about the use of 
  Markdown with some members of the IESG. Some feel that using Markdown 
  would make doing the AUTH48 process in GitHub easier than using XML. 
  Discussions about this are ongoing.


5. Current Activities on RSOC Web Page

  After a discussion, the RSOC agreed to not make any changes to the 
  existing RSOC web page until after the work in the RFC Editor Future 
  Development Program is complete.

 
6. RFC Editor Future Development Program Update

  Peter Saint-Andre reported that progress is being made in the RFC 
  Editor Future Development Program, and that the chairs are planning to 
  put out a call for adoption for the "RFC Editor Model (Version 3)" 
  document soon. There are still a number of open issues to work 
  through, but the recent Program meetings have been productive and 
  there is hope that they can come to consensus in the coming months.


7. Next RSOC Meeting

  The next RSOC meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 19, 2021 at 4:00 
  PM PDT.