RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC) November 17, 2016 RSOC Meeting Reported by: Cindy Morgan, IETF Secretariat ATTENDEES --------------------------------- Sarah Banks (Chair) Nevil Brownlee Heather Flanagan (RSE, non-voting) Joel Halpern Joe Hildebrand Bob Hinden Cindy Morgan (Scribe, non-voting) Ray Pelletier (IAOC Liaison, non-voting) Adam Roach Robert Sparks (IAB Lead) REGRETS --------------------------------- Tony Hansen MINUTES --------------------------------- 1. Approval of Minutes The minutes from the 12 October 2016 meeting were approved. 2. Agenda bash Two new items were added to the agenda. 3. RPC SLA Heather Flanagan reported that the SLA for the RPC has been in Tier 2 for 2 of 3 quarters so far in 2016. The RPC thinks the new SLA is working well. 4. Next twelve months 4.1. Format Heather Flanagan reported that the new format work is proceeding. The current timeline is six months until testing, and 18 months until completion. The RPC wants to hold off on hiring a new editor until the new format is about 3 months into production; that may not be until 2018, which will impact the 2017 budget. 4.2. Infrastructure Heather Flanagan reported that changes to the RFC Editor database infrastructure is turning into a design goal, so that when programmers touch the database they will need to consider how to make sure the changes move the environment to one that follows best current practices for database structure and management, and for the codebase. This should in turn make the environment easier for outside programmers to work with in the future. Robert Sparks added that one imminent change is to make the RPC code base open. He is working with Henrik Levkowetz to review the code and make sure they do not expose any security issues. This is expected to be completed in the next 2-3 weeks. 4.3. Digital Signatures Heather Flanagan reported that the initial goal of digitally signing RFCs was intended to lessen the time it takes for attestations in a subpoena. However, it turns out that this issue is more complicated than originally expected, and digital signature actually will not save any time when processing subpoenas. Heather Flanagan proposed to move the project to a dormant state until digital signatures are more widely accepted by the legal community and some precedent on best practice is established. After discussion, the RSOC agreed to re-assess digitally signing RFCs when it is more technically easy to do so. 4.4. Digital Preservation Heather Flanagan asked the RSOC to review draft-iab-rfc-preservation, as she would like to send it to send it to the IAB for publication soon. The National Library of Sweden asked for one more change to the RSS feed; that has now been handled. The press release announcing the archive is currently on hold, but expected to move back up to the top of the queue after IETF 97. Memento and the Los Alamos National Lab Research Library have expressed an interest in archiving the RFC Series; Heather Flanagan asked for volunteers to help her understand what changes will be required if they decide to proceed. 5. FYI: Updates (draft-wilde-updating-rfcs) Heather Flanagan reported that the RFC Series Advisory Group (RSAG) has concerns about draft-wilde-updating-rfcs, which are currently being discussed on the WG Chairs list. 6. DOI Update Heather Flanagan updated the RSOC on the new CrossRef DOI display guidelines (the transition from a bare DOI string to a URL that points to doi.org, first mentioned at the 12 October 2016 meeting). The RFC Series is not the only group that has expressed concerns about the change. The discussion is ongoing, but it is possible that the new guidelines will end up as "shoulds" rather than "musts." Heather reported that the IRTF Chair, who originally requested DOIs for the RFC Series, said that if the new guidelines are considered hard rules, then RFC Series should stop using DOIs, as it would not be worth it. Bob Hinden noted that announcements from the RFC Editor had included the DOI link, which redirects to the RFC Editor site, and asked that the RFC Editor stop including those links. Heather Flanagan will talk to the RPC about this, and have this added to the programmer's list. 7. Empty IANA Considerations sections Bob Hinden asked whether empty IANA Considerations sections are being deleted or left in with a note that says "There are no IANA considerations." Heather Flanagan replied that Sandy Ginoza is working on a procedure for the editors, instructing them to leave empty IANA considerations sections in documents going forward. 8. New IETF website Joe Hildebrand noted that it would be interesting if the new IETF website could put together a page about a group of documents that share some property, e.g. HTTP, RTCWEB, etc. This might require a separate list of metadata that the IETF website CMS would pull from. Robert Sparks replied that this is already in the works in the Datatracker.