SML - Structured Email

IETF 124 [hybrid] Montréal

Friday 7 November
11:30 (Montréal)
1.5 hours

Meetecho:
https://meetings.conf.meetecho.com/ietf124/?group=sml&short=&item=1
Notes: https://notes.ietf.org/notes-ietf-124-sml

Chairs: Alexey Melnikov, Arnt Gulbrandsen
Note taker: Jim Fenton

Administrivia

Trust and security considerations for Structured Email

draft-ietf-sml-trust
Arnt Gulbrandsen presenting (without hat)

Daniel Gillmor (DKG): Are messages and senders both trusted?
A: Shades of meaning of "trust". Messages from trusted senders are
always trusted. Other messages may be trusted based on external things
like calendar or being a reply to a trusted message.

Sounds like this needs to be discussed in the draft.

Hans-Jörg Happel (H-J): Perhaps limited trust from white-label email
service, travel agent, etc.
A: trust range from spammers to fully trusted.

Orie: What about signatures? JSON-LD etc. Suggest JWS.

DKG (re automatic processing): Semantics of transformation significantly
affect the amount of notification needed.
H-J: Might depend on earlier actions (e.g., acknowledgement) by the
user.
Ben Bucksch: Might depend on prior explicit approval by user, trusted
sender (e.g., boss), or something already stored (e.g., airline ticket).

Structured vacation notices (-01)

draft-ietf-sml-structured-vacation-notices
Hans-Jörg Happel presenting

Vacation notices for roles, services, etc. as well as individuals
Also no-reply notices, etc. So maybe call it something else because it's
broader than vacation notices?

Alexey as chair: Might need to park this until the core document is
done.
Andy Newton as AD: Could also submit and put in AD evaluation hold.

Action: Start WGLC

SML Use Cases

draft-ietf-sml-structured-email-use-cases
Ben Bucksch presenting

  1. Poll - similar in email as in chat
  2. Meeting time poll - agreement on meeting time
  3. Book me - Recipient chooses from offered meeting times
  4. To Do (tasks) - list of items with checkboxes
  5. Location sharing - similar to WhatsApp, etc.
    5a. Sharing tied to meeting times

Alexey: Use cases need to be aligned with the trust document. Some of
the proposed use cases are not currently covered.
Arnt (w/o hat): Nothing in the document about user choice
DKG: Think about things that this needs to be integrated with (e.g.,
calendar)
Daniel Gultsch: Are updates sent via email or HTTP?
A: HTTP. Same data would be on HTTP endpoint and optionally updated.
Daniel Gultsch: Can XMPP be used as an alternative to HTTP?
A: Yes.
DG: Some are concerned about requiring HTTP as well as SMTP.
Arnt w/o hat: What about reactions (e.g., Office365): HTTP is a better
choice here
A: Agree

Structured Email core draft (-04)

draft-ietf-sml-structured-email
Hans-Jörg Happel presenting

Draft recently updated

Machine readable messages
Jim Fenton: We already have these (calendar invitations), would like to
have human-readable description of what is happening.
A: Good input

Alexey (as chair): This document depends on the trust document.
Alexey: Why was text about replies removed?
A: Perhaps a different effort, not required for core draft, and might
delay it. Maybe a very soon bis document?
Andy: Can't you wait and just do this once?
Alexey: We don't understand the problem space fully yet.

AOB

H-J announces FOSDEM conference last week of January 2026 (in Brussels).