RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC) June 12, 2017 RSOC Meeting Reported by: Cindy Morgan, IETF Secretariat ATTENDEES --------------------------------- Sarah Banks (Chair) Nevil Brownlee Heather Flanagan (RSE, non-voting) Joel Halpern Tony Hansen Bob Hinden Cindy Morgan (Scribe, non-voting) Adam Roach Robert Sparks (Lead) REGRETS --------------------------------- Ray Pelletier (IAOC Liaison, non-voting) Martin Thomson MINUTES --------------------------------- 0. Review of minutes The minutes of the 10 May 2017 RSOC Meeting were approved 1. Project updates 1.1. Format Heather Flanagan reported that the id2xml tool has been released to the RPC for testing and announced on the tools list. Heather Flanagan reported that the RPC is very close to being able to handle non-ASCII characters. There is an HTTPBIS WG document in the RFC Editor Queue that uses non-ASCII characters, and a couple of PRECIS WG documents in IETF Last Call that may be modified to use non- ASCII characters once the tools are ready to support that. Robert Sparks reminded the RSOC that the current status of the format tools is being tracked at https://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/ietfdb/wiki/FormatToolsPlan. 1.2. WG Chairs info session @ IETF 99 Heather Flanagan is planning to hold an information session on the new RFC format tools during the WG Chairs Forum at IETF 99. 1.3. RPC hire In September 2016, the RSOC agreed that once the RPC gets to the point of putting resources towards testing for the new format, the RPC will increase staffing. Heather Flanagan asked the RSOC if they had any concerns moving forward with that plan at this time. Robert Sparks noted that when the timeline for this was initially set, they had expected to be further along with the tools; currently there is only one out for testing. Joel Halpern added that hiring in July if the tools won't be ready for testing until mid-September seems a bit early. Heather Flanagan replied that one of the reasons for hiring is that that the testing will take the experienced editors away from editing documents; the new hire would need to be trained and up to speed by the time that happens. Joel asked how much ramp-up time is needed for new editors. Heather replied that it would depend on whether the RPC hired new people (3-5 months), or increase the hours for existing RPC staff (no ramp-up time needed). Heather Flanagan will ask the RPC whether they plan to hire new staff, or increase the hours of existing staff. 1.4. Style Guide Heather Flanagan reported that she plans to have an updated draft of the style guide out by the week of 19 June 2017. 2. Recent editorial and tool issues 2.1. "which" vs "that" Heather Flanagan reported that she recently had a debate with an author about the use of "which" versus "that." There are different schools of thought on the topic, and this has been an ongoing debate; the topic is covered by the RFC Style Guide's use of the Chicago Manual of Style. 2.2. xml2rfc Heather Flanagan reported that after some disagreement about how and where issues about the format tool work should be recorded, the xml2rfc-dev list is being revived as a place to talk specifically about format tool development. Robert Sparks noted that this is another instance of the ongoing tension about how IETF makes use of GitHub. Tony Hansen asked if there was a way that things posted to GitHub could be posted to the mailing list. Robert said that he would follow up with Martin Thomson about this, as he has been involved in the conversations about the IETF's use of GitHub. 3. Digital Preservation Heather Flanagan reported that she sent out a marked up copy of the MoU with the Computer History Museum to the RSOC, and asked people to review it. Heather asked the RSOC if she should send the MoU to the IETF Trust before returning it to the Computer History Museum; the RSOC agreed that sending it to the IETF Trust first was a good idea. 4. Administrivia Heather Flanagan asked the RSOC whether there was a need to hold the regular July conference call in addition to the face-to-face meeting at IETF 99. The RSOC agreed that only the face-to-face meeting will be needed. Heather will send out a Doodle poll to select a time once the preliminary IETF 99 meeting agenda is published. If there is no time during the regular meeting sessions that works for everyone, RSOC will fall back to the Thursday lunch slot. 5. AOB Heather Flanagan reported that she will be on vacation during the week of 26 June 2017. Heather Flanagan reported that her interview in CONNECT magazine was published in the 5 June 2017 issue; she is hoping this will encourage people from the GEANT community to come to the next IETF meeting. The interview is available at: https://www.geant.org/News_and_Events/ CONNECT/Pages/The-CONNECT-Interview-Heather-Flanagan.aspx Robert Sparks noted that Ray Pelletier has announced that he will retire at the end of October 2017, and asked the RSOC to help keep track of the conversations the RSOC has ongoing with the IAOC to make sure nothing is lost in the transition.