RFC SERIES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (RSOC) June 22, 2020 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) Adam Roach Peter Saint-Andre GUEST --------------------------------- Sandy Ginoza (RFC Production Center) REGRETS --------------------------------- Mark Nottingham RSOC DECISIONS: 2020 --------------------------------- - 2020-05-27: RSOC agrees that the RFC Series should plan to be able to regenerate the output formats of RFCs. Related action item: John Levine to draft a plan that defines when it is appropriate to regenerate the output formats of RFCs. - 2019 Decisions: ACTION ITEM REVIEW --------------------------------- Done: - 2020-02-26: John Levine to draft a report for RSOC outlining all of the open issues with the v3 work. - 2020-02-26: John Levine to draft a plan on how to manage change control for the v3 XML. - 2020-04-27: Jay Daley and John Levine to set up a video call with Henrik Levkowetz and Robert Sparks to discuss prioritization of open issues with the v3 tools. - 2020-05-27: John Levine to draft a plan that defines when it is appropriate to regenerate the output formats of RFCs and what version control mechanisms should be used. In Progress: - 2020-05-27: Sarah Banks to ask the RPC if there are any gating issues preventing v3 from being declared stable. - 2020-05-27: Sarah Banks to talk to the RPC about running an unofficial "shadow SLA" in order to assess what the actual SLA should be under v3. New: - 2020-06-22: John Levine to add the plan on how to manage change control for the v3 XML to draft-iab-rfc7991bis and as a README file for the GitHub repository for https://github.com/rfc-format/draft-iab-xml2rfc-v3-bis. - 2020-06-22: RSOC to review the plan that defines when it is appropriate to regenerate the output formats of RFCs and what version control mechanisms should be used, and provide feedback on the RSOC list. * Deadline: 2020-07-06. - 2020-06-22: Jay Daley to draft a process for managing changes to the v3 RFC XML vocabulary. - 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. * Deadline: July RSOC meeting, 2020-07-20. --------------------------------- 1. Administrivia The minutes of the 2020-05-27 RSOC meeting were approved. 2. v3 Issues and Tools John Levine reported that Jay Daley drafted a plan on how to manage change control for the v3 XML RELAX-NG schema. Cindy Morgan asked where this plan will be documented so that people can refer back to it. After a brief discussion, the RSOC agreed that the plan should be documented in draft-iab-rfc7991bis and included as a README file for the GitHub repository for https://github.com/rfc-format/draft-iab-xml2rfc-v3-bis. * Action item: John Levine to add the plan on how to manage change control for the v3 XML to draft-iab-rfc7991bis and as a README file for the GitHub repository for https://github.com/rfc-format/draft-iab-xml2rfc-v3-bis. Sandy Ginoza asked if the RPC will need to archive older versions of the tools in case they do not work with later versions. Jay Daley responded that the tools are archived in the XML2RFC repository, but they will need to know what version of the tool is used to generate something. John Levine replied that the HTML output of RFCs includes what version of the tools was used. John Levine reported that he has drafted a plan that defines when it is appropriate to regenerate the output formats of RFCs and what version control mechanisms should be used, and is looking for feedback from the RSOC. * Action item: RSOC to review the plan that defines when it is appropriate to regenerate the output formats of RFCs and what version control mechanisms should be used, and provide feedback on the RSOC list by 2020-07-06. The RSOC discussed whether there are any gating issues preventing v3 from being declared stable. Sandy Ginoza said that it is difficult to say, because what the RPC needs from XML2RFCv3 depends on what they get from the authors. The RPC is relying on the Temporary RFC Series Project Manager to let them know when he thinks v3 is stable, and when new issues should be handled as feature requests. John Levine noted that there was a recent document that had tables and fixed-width fonts that did not display nicely, but that the problem was resolved by changing how the document was rendered, rather than changing the XML vocabulary. He said that at this point, he thinks v3 can be declared stable. Cullen Jennings asked how comprehensive the test plan for XML2RFCv3 is. John Levine replied that there are a lot of test cases; Sandy Ginoza added that the RPC has not yet seen many cases with SVG or UTF-8 in the body of a document. Jay Daley said that if v3 is to be considered stable, then there needs to be a process for change control. Sandy Ginoza added that the process needs to be documented in a public place that the RPC can point authors to. * Action item: Jay Daley to draft a process for managing changes to the v3 RFC XML vocabulary. 3. SLA Update The RSOC had previously discussed asking the RPC about running an unofficial "shadow SLA" in order to assess what the actual SLA should be under v3. Sandy Ginoza replied that the RPC is still posting stats on their website (https://www.rfc-editor.org/report-summary/) that show where things are compared to the previous SLA, and that she hopes that can be used as a reasonable starting point for a new SLA. She also noted that currently Cluster 238 is affecting RPC processing times. The bulk of those documents are expected to be in AUTH48 within the next two or three weeks, after which time the RPC will be able to have a better handle of what processing times will be under v3. Sandy Ginoza also noted that of the documents that have been published in v3 XML, only 4% were actually submitted in v3. 88% were submitted in v2 XML, and the remaining 8% were submitted as text files with no XML. The v2 and plain text submissions had to be converted to v3. Peter Saint-Andre said that sounds like a problem, and asked how RSOC can encourage documents to be in v3 format before they are submitted to the RPC. Sarah Banks replied that there are a number of authors who don't edit in XML and would prefer to use a Microsoft Word template to get plain text. Cullen Jennings added that the XML2RFC website is still using v2. * Action item: John Levine to document the factors that appear to contribute to the very low adoption by authors of v3 XML as a submission format. Sarah Banks will check back in with the RPC about running a shadow SLA once the bulk of Cluster 238 is in AUTH48. 4. Meeting Schedule After a brief discussion, the RSOC agreed to try having a standing meeting on the third Monday of the month at 2200 UTC for the next three months, rather than sending out a Doodle poll each month. After three months, the RSOC will reassess whether this has worked for them. 5. Funding Request The RSOC supports the funding request from the RPC. Jay Daley will proceed with the request.