Proto E. Juskevicius Internet Draft TrekAhead Intended status: Informational June 9, 2010 Expires: December 9, 2010 Definition of IETF Working Group Document States draft-ietf-proto-wgdocument-states-07.txt Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html This Internet-Draft will expire on December 9, 2010. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 1] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 Abstract The IETF Datatracker tool will be enhanced to make it possible for Working Group (WG) Chairs to provide more transparency into the status and progression of WG documents to authors and other members of the IETF community. This document defines new document states that may be used to describe the status of an Internet-Draft (I-D) that is associated with an IETF working group (WG). The first state can be used to describe an I-D that is being considered for adoption by a WG, and the last state describes an I-D that has been submitted to the IESG. Appendix A explains the different states used by IETF Area Directors (ADs) to describe the status of I-Ds after they have been sent to the IESG for evaluation and publication. Table of Contents 1. Introduction...................................................3 2. Conventions used in this document..............................4 3. Document States................................................4 3.1. Document Availability States..............................4 3.1.1. Expired..............................................5 3.1.2. Active...............................................5 3.1.3. Replaced.............................................5 3.2. IESG Document States......................................6 3.2.1. Publication Requested................................6 3.2.2. AD Evaluation........................................6 3.2.3. IESG Evaluation......................................6 3.2.4. Other IESG Document States...........................6 3.3. Working Group Document States.............................7 3.3.1. Candidate WG Document................................7 3.3.2. Adopted by a WG......................................7 3.3.3. WG Document..........................................8 3.3.4. Adopted for WG Info Only.............................8 3.3.5. Not Adopted by a WG..................................9 3.3.6. Parked WG Document...................................9 3.3.7. Dead WG Document.....................................9 3.3.8. In WG Last Call......................................9 3.3.9. Waiting for WG Chair Go-Ahead.......................10 3.3.10. WG Consensus: Waiting for Write-Up.................10 3.3.11. Submitted to IESG for Publication..................10 3.4. Working Group Document State Diagram.....................11 3.5. WG Document Status Annotation Tags.......................13 3.5.1. Awaiting Cross-Area Review..........................13 3.5.2. Awaiting MIB Doctor Review..........................13 3.5.3. Awaiting Security Review............................13 3.5.4. Awaiting External Review............................14 3.5.5. Awaiting Merge with Other Document..................14 Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 2] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 3.5.6. Author or Editor Needed.............................14 3.5.7. Waiting for Referenced Document.....................14 3.5.8. Waiting for Referencing Document....................15 3.5.9. Revised I-D Needed..................................15 3.5.10. Revised I-D Needed - Issue raised by AD............15 3.5.11. Revised I-D Needed - Issue raised by IESG..........15 3.5.12. Doc Shepherd Follow-Up Underway....................15 3.5.13. Other - see Comment Log............................16 3.6. Intended Maturity Level of WG Documents..................16 4. Security Considerations.......................................16 5. IANA Considerations...........................................16 6. References....................................................17 6.1. Normative References.....................................17 6.2. Informative References...................................17 7. Acknowledgments...............................................17 Appendix A: "IESG Document" States...............................18 A.1. Definition of "IESG Document" States.....................18 A.1.1. NULL................................................18 A.1.2. Publication Requested...............................18 A.1.3. AD Evaluation.......................................18 A.1.4. Expert Review.......................................18 A.1.5. Last Call Requested.................................19 A.1.6. In Last Call........................................19 A.1.7. Waiting for Write-up................................19 A.1.8. Waiting for AD Go-Ahead.............................19 A.1.9. IESG Evaluation.....................................19 A.1.10. IESG Evaluation - Defer............................19 A.1.11. Approved - Announcement to be sent.................20 A.1.12. Approved - Announcement sent.......................20 A.1.13. RFC Ed Queue.......................................20 A.1.14. RFC Published......................................20 A.1.15. DNP - Waiting for AD note..........................20 A.1.16. DNP - Announcement to be sent......................20 A.1.17. AD is Watching.....................................20 A.1.18. Dead...............................................21 A.2. IESG Document Substates..................................21 A.2.1. Point Raised - Write-up needed......................21 A.2.2. AD Follow-up........................................21 A.2.3. External Party......................................22 A.2.4. Revised I-D Needed..................................22 1. Introduction The IETF Datatracker is a web-based system for managing information about Internet-Drafts and RFCs, IPR disclosures, liaison statements and several other important aspects of the IETF process [IDTRACKER]. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 3] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 The Datatracker can provide a lot of information about the status and progression of any I-D after it is submitted to the IESG for evaluation and publication. In contrast, the Datatracker currently has almost no information about the status of a working group I-D before it is sent to the IESG. The tool can only report on the availability of an I-D and the name of the WG that the I-D is associated with (if any). In some cases, the Datatracker cannot even provide information about the availability of a document, but just an indication that an "I-D Exists". "I-D Exists" is a status indication currently manufactured by the Datatracker to describe an I-D that is not expired and that has not been sent to the IESG for evaluation. This document defines new states to be added to the Datatracker to make it possible for WG Chairs provide IETF participants with more visibility into the status and progression of WG documents. 2. Conventions used in this document The phrase "working group document" is to be interpreted as being synonymous with "working group I-D". The same is true for the plural case of each phrase. The phrase "working group document" is not intended to apply to any other document that may be reviewed, discussed, or produced by an IETF working group. Working group meeting materials such as Blue Sheets, agendas, jabber logs, scribe's notes, minutes, and presentation slides are not to be considered as "working group documents" in the context of this document. 3. Document States This section describes the status information about every I-D that may be obtained by querying the Datatracker today, and it defines several new states that need to be added to allow WG Chairs or their delegates to identify the status of working group I-Ds. 3.1. Document Availability States The Datatracker can be queried for availability status information about every I-D submitted to the IETF. The availability states are: - Expired - Active - Replaced - Withdrawn by Submitter - Withdrawn by IETF - RFC Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 4] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 The first three availability states are described in the following subsections. 3.1.1. Expired An "Expired" I-D is a document that is more than six months old and that has not been updated or replaced by a newer I-D. Every I-D has a normal lifespan of 185 days. An I-D will expire and be deleted from the I-D repository after six months unless it is updated or replaced by a newer version. One exception is that an I-D undergoing official evaluation by the IESG will not be expired before its status is resolved (e.g. the I-D is published as an RFC). IESG states that do not relate to a formal request to publish a document (e.g., "AD is Watching") do not prevent an I-D from expiring [AUTHGUIDE]. 3.1.2. Active An "Active" I-D is a document that is not expired. The "Active" availability state is applicable to individual I-Ds and to WG I-Ds. The Datatracker may also use "Active" to describe the status of an I-D under formal evaluation by the IESG or an I-D that is in the RFC Editor Queue. As a result, "Active" cannot be used as an indicator of whether an I-D is actually being actively developed by an IETF WG [WGDTSPEC]. 3.1.3. Replaced "Replaced" is a term used by the Datatracker to describe the final state of an I-D that was renamed and subsequently reposted to the I-D repository for some reason. Two common uses of "Replaced" are as follows: - The filename of individual I-D that is being considered for adoption by an IETF WG for will typically include the name of its author (e.g. 'draft-author-wgname-topic-nn'). After the I-D is adopted by a WG, its filename will change to 'draft-ietf- wgname-topic-00', and the Datatracker will indicate the old individual I-D was "Replaced by" version-00 of the WG I-D. - The Datatracker will use "Replaced by" to describe the final state of an I-D that is published as an RFC; the I-D is "Replaced by" the RFC. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 5] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 3.2. IESG Document States The Datatracker has more than a dozen different states to describe the status and progression of I-Ds under evaluation by the IESG [IESGSTAT]. The following sections describe three IESG states that should be of interest to I-D authors and working group Chairs. 3.2.1. Publication Requested The "Publication Requested" state describes an I-D for which a formal request has been sent to the IESG to advance/publish the I-D as an RFC, following the procedures specified in Section 7.5 of RFC 2418 [RFC2418]. Most working group documents enter the IESG state machine at this point. An I-D in the "Publication Requested" state has not yet been reviewed by an AD and no official action has been taken on the I-D other than to note that its publication has been requested. 3.2.2. AD Evaluation The "AD Evaluation" state is used to describe an I-D that the responsible Area Director has begun to review. The purpose of the review is to verify that the I-D is ready for advancement before an IETF Last Call is started or before the document is progressed to the IESG as a whole. After evaluating the document, the responsible AD may decide the I-D needs to be revised before it can progress further. The AD may send a working group I-D back to WG that created it for revision. 3.2.3. IESG Evaluation "IESG Evaluation" is another state that may cause an I-D to be sent back to an IETF WG for revision. "IESG Evaluation" describes a document that is being formally evaluated by the entire IESG. Every AD is able to air any content or process issues he/she may have with the document. Issues that are blocking approval of the document are called "DISCUSS" comments. A "DISCUSS" with serious issues may cause the I-D to be returned to the WG for revision. 3.2.4. Other IESG Document States See Appendix A and [IESGSTAT]. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 6] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 3.3. Working Group Document States This section describes new states to be added to the Datatracker to make it possible for IETF WG Chairs and/or their delegates to indicate the status of I-Ds in their working groups. WG Chairs will have the option to use some, all or none of these WG document states to describe the status of some, all or none of the I-Ds associated with their WGs. The annotation tags defined in Section 3.5 may be used to provide additional information about the reason a WG document may be in the state it is in and/or the action needed to progress the document into its next state. 3.3.1. Candidate WG Document The "Candidate WG Document" state may be used to describe an I-D that is being considered for adoption by an IETF WG. An I-D in this state has not yet achieved consensus, preference or selection in a WG. This state may be used by a WG Chair to describe: - an I-D that someone has asked to be considered by a WG, if the WG Chair has agreed with the request; - an I-D that the WG Chair asked an author to write; - an I-D listed as a 'candidate draft' in the WG charter. Note that a document author may "shop" an I-D to multiple working groups hoping to get the I-D adopted somewhere. In order to have a way to track this, the Datatracker will allow an I-D to be in a "Candidate WG Document" state for more than one WG at a time; the Datatracker will maintain a separate state machine to track the status of I-Ds in every IETF WG. 3.3.2. Adopted by a WG The "Adopted by a WG" state should be used to identify an individual submission I-D that an IETF WG has agreed to adopt as one of its WG documents. The purpose of this state is to provide a clear indication of when an I-D is adopted by a WG, and to help the Datatracker identify correct "Replaced by" information for the history log of the individual I-D. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 7] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 This state is needed because the Datatracker uses the filename of an I-D as a key to locate status information about the I-D, and because the filename for a WG document is supposed to be different from the filename for an individual I-D. The filename of an individual submission I-D will typically be formatted as 'draft-author-wgname-topic-nn'. The filename of a WG document is supposed to be formatted as 'draft-ietf-wgname-topic-nn'. An individual I-D that is adopted by a WG may take weeks or months to be resubmitted as a new version-00 WG document. Without the "Adopted by a WG" state, the Datatracker has no way to identify that an I-D has been adopted until a new version-00 of the I-D is submitted to the WG and approved for posting by a WG Chair. 3.3.3. WG Document A "WG Document" is an I-D that has been adopted by an IETF WG and is being actively developed. The Datatracker will be extended to automatically place a new version-00 I-D into the "WG Document" state if a WG Chair approves the I-D for posting and if the I-D's filename includes the string 'draft-ietf-wgname-' A "WG Document" will be "Expired" or "Active" if its age is more or less than six months as described in Sections 3.1.1 and 3.1.2. Every "WG Document" should have an "intended maturity level" (e.g. Informational, Proposed Standard, Experimental) associated with it as described in Section 3.6. This information is often requested by IETF participants and it is now required by the IESG for every I-D that is submitted to the IESG for publication. Under normal conditions, it should not be possible for an I-D to be in the "WG Document" state in more than one working group at a time. That being said, documents may be transferred from one WG to another. The Datatracker will make it easier to track an I-D that is transferred between IETF WGs. 3.3.4. Adopted for WG Info Only The "Adopted for WG Info Only" state describes a document that contains useful information for the WG; however the document will not be published as an RFC. The WG will not actively develop the contents of the I-D or progress it for publication as an RFC. The only purpose of the I-D is to provide information for internal use by the WG. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 8] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 3.3.5. Not Adopted by a WG Some of the I-Ds considered for adoption by IETF working groups do not get adopted. The "Not Adopted by a WG" state should be used to describe an I-D that was considered for adoption by one or more IETG working groups and was not adopted by any working group. The Datatracker may be programmed to automatically transition a "Candidate WG Document" into the "Not Adopted by a WG" state if the I-D is not adopted by any WG before the expiry of a 'must be adopted by a specified date or else' timer. To facilitate this, the Datatracker may be configured to send an e-mail 'nudge' to the Chair of every WG that has identified the I-D as a candidate for adoption. The nudge will warn that the Datatracker will automatically place the I-D in the "Not Adopted by a WG" state in a week's time unless a Chair moves the document into a different state first (e.g., "Adopted by a WG", "Adopted for WG Info Only"). 3.3.6. Parked WG Document A "Parked WG Document" is an I-D that has lost its author or editor, is waiting for another document to be written or for a review to be completed, or cannot be progressed by the working group for some other reason. Some of the annotation tags described in Section 3.5 may be used in conjunction with this state to indicate why the I-D has been parked, and/or what may need to happen for the I-D to be un- parked. 3.3.7. Dead WG Document A "Dead WG Document" is an I-D that has been abandoned. Note that dead is not always a final state for a WG I-D. If consensus is subsequently achieved, a "Dead WG Document" may be resurrected. 3.3.8. In WG Last Call A document "In WG Last Call" is an I-D for which a WG Last Call (WGLC) has been issued, and is in progress. Note that conducting a WGLC is an optional part of the IETF working group process, per section 7.4 of RFC 2418 [RFC2418] If a WG Chair decides to conduct a WGLC on an I-D, he/she may use the "In WG Last Call" state to track the progress of the WGLC. The Chair may configure the Datatracker to send a WGLC message to one or more mailing lists when the Chair moves the I-D into this state. The WG Chair should be able to select a different set of Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 9] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 mailing lists for each document. Some documents may deserve coordination with other WGs. A document in this state should remain "In WG Last Call" until the WG Chair moves it to another state. The WG Chair may configure the Datatracker to send an e-mail after a specified period of time to remind or 'nudge' the Chair to conclude the WGLC and to determine the next state for the document. It is possible for a WGLC to lead into another WGLC for the same document. For example, an I-D that completed a WGLC as an "Informational" document may need another WGLC if a decision is taken to convert the I-D into a standards track document. 3.3.9. Waiting for WG Chair Go-Ahead A WG Chair may wish to place an I-D that receives a lot of comments during a WGLC into the "Waiting for WG Chair Go-Ahead" state. This state describes an I-D that has undergone a WGLC; however, the Chair is not yet ready to call consensus on the document. If comments from the WGLC need to be responded to, or a revision to the I-D is needed, the Chair may place an I-D into this state until all of the WGLC comments are adequately addressed and the (possibly revised) document is in the I-D directory. 3.3.10. WG Consensus: Waiting for Write-Up A document in the "WG Consensus: Waiting for Write-Up" state has essentially completed its development within the working group, and is nearly ready to be sent to the IESG for publication. The last thing to be done is the preparation of a protocol write-up by a document shepherd. The IESG requires that a document shepherd write-up be completed before publication of the I-D is requested. A WG Chair may call consensus on an I-D without a formal WGLC, and transition an I-D that was in the "WG Document" state directly into this state. The name of this state includes the words "Waiting for Write-Up" because a good document shepherd write-up takes time to prepare. 3.3.11. Submitted to IESG for Publication This state describes a WG document that has been submitted to the IESG for publication and that has not been sent back to the working group for revision. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 10] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 An I-D in this state may be under review by the IESG, or it may have been approved and be in the RFC Editor's queue, or it may have been published as an RFC. Other possibilities exist too. The document may be "Dead" (in the IESG state machine) or in a "Do Not Publish" state. 3.4. Working Group Document State Diagram Figure 1 illustrates all of the document states and many of the state transitions that an I-D may experience during its progression from being an individual draft to being adopted by a WG and replaced by a WG I-D, and its subsequent tenure as a WG document. The names of the WG document states are capitalized for clarity. Not every possible state transition is illustrated in the diagram. The absence of an explicit path between two states does not mean the state transition is precluded. With very few exceptions, a working group document may be moved from any WG document state to any other WG document state by a WG Chair or his/her delegate. If an unusual or uncommon state change is made, some text to explain the transition should be entered in a comment log in the Datatracker. The WG document states illustrated in Figure 1 will be implemented as a new state machine in the Datatracker. WG Chairs and their delegates will be able to identify the status of documents they have adopted independently from how the status of the same documents may be described by the IESG (after they are submitted to the IESG for evaluation and publication). Appendix A describes the states used by the IESG to indicate the status of I-Ds sent to them. Note that Figure 1 includes an arc from the "Submitted to IESG for Publication" state back to the "WG Document" state. This is one example of what can happen when an AD or the IESG as a whole sends an I-D back to an IETF WG for revision. An I-D that is deemed to need revision will be in one of the IESG states (in the IESG state machine) and it may also return to being in one of the states in the WG state machine for a while. If a WG Chair or delegate decides not to manually update the WG status of an I-D, the Datatracker may automatically generate two state transitions. An I-D may be moved into the "WG Document" state automatically if a WG Chair approves the posting of a new version-00 I-D that conforms to the 'draft-ietf-wgname-topic-00' file naming convention. The Datatracker could also move a "WG Document" into the "Submitted to IESG for Publication" state (in the WG document state machine) when the I-D is moved into the "Publication Requested" state in the IESG state machine. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 11] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 +------------------------------------------------------------------+ | start for 'draft-author-wgname-topic-nn' | | | | | v | | | | ADOPTED <------ CANDIDATE WG -----> NOT ADOPTED | | BY A WG DOCUMENT BY A WG | | (also "Replaced by ..") | | : | | + - - - - - - - - - + | | v | | | | start for 'draft-ietf-wgname-topic-00' | | | | | v | | | | ADOPTED FOR <--------- WG <--------> PARKED WG | | WG INFO ONLY . - > DOCUMENT <-- DOCUMENT | | . \ | | . / \ \ | | . / \ \ | | . / \ ---> DEAD WG | | . v \ DOCUMENT | | . \ | | . IN WG --+ v | | LAST CALL | | | ^ | +-> WG CONSENSUS: | | ' | WAITING FOR | | ' v +--> WRITE-UP | | ^ | | | | ' WAITING FOR | | | | ' WG CHAIR --+ | | | ^ GO-AHEAD v | | . | | . SUBMITTED | | (revision needed) - < - - < - - TO IESG | | FOR PUBLICATION | | : | | : | | (IESG States as in Appendix A) | | : | | : | | v | +------------------------------------------------------------------+ Figure 1 - Diagram of I-D states relevant to IETF WGs (only common state transitions shown) Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 12] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 3.5. WG Document Status Annotation Tags In addition to indicating which state a working group document is in, the Datatracker will allow several substate conditions to be identified and tracked. This section defines annotation tags that may be used to describe a condition that is affecting a document (e.g., why a document is in the state it is in) or to indicate an action needed to progress the document. Annotation tags do not change the state of WG documents. Each of the annotation tags defined herein may be used to provide more information about the status of any WG document in any state, if it makes sense to do so. Each annotation tag may be used by itself, or in combination with other tags. 3.5.1. Awaiting Cross-Area Review This tag means that someone (e.g. an author or editor of the document, or a WG Chair) has initiated a cross-area review of the document, and the review has not yet been completed. Documents tagged with this annotation should retain the tag until the review is complete and possibly until any issues raised in the review are addressed. 3.5.2. Awaiting MIB Doctor Review This tag means that someone (e.g. an author or editor of the document, or the WG Chair) has initiated a review of the document by a MIB Doctor, and the review has not yet been completed. Documents tagged with this annotation should retain the tag until the review is complete and possibly until any issues raised in the review are addressed. 3.5.3. Awaiting Security Review This tag means that someone (e.g. an author or editor of the document, or a WG Chair) has initiated a review of security considerations in the document, and the review has not yet been completed. Documents tagged with this annotation should retain the tag until the review is complete and possibly until the issues raised in the review are addressed. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 13] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 3.5.4. Awaiting External Review This tag means that someone (e.g. an author or editor of the document, or a WG Chair) has initiated some other review of the document (e.g. sent it to another Standards Development Organization (SDO) for comments via a formal or informal liaison process) and the review has not yet been completed. Documents tagged with this annotation should retain the tag until the review is complete and possibly until any issues raised in the review are addressed. 3.5.5. Awaiting Merge with Other Document This tag means a decision has been made by someone (e.g. the document author, editor, or the WG Chair) to merge the I-D with one or more other I-Ds from the same (or another) working group. If the result of the merge is a new I-D having a different title, then the old I-D may be declared as being a "Dead WG Document". In such a case the annotation tag should be changed from "Awaiting Merge with Other Document" to "Other - see Comment Log" and a description of the merge should be entered into the log for posterity. The Datatracker's regular 'Replaced-by' information should also be set for the old I-Ds to make it easier to find the new merged document from the old documents. If the result of the merge operation is a revision to the old I-D, this annotation tag should be cleared when the revised (merged) I-D is submitted to the WG. 3.5.6. Author or Editor Needed This tag means an I-D has lost a primary author or editor, and that further work on the I-D cannot continue in an effective or efficient manner until a new author or editor is found. 3.5.7. Waiting for Referenced Document This tag means that completion of the I-D is on-hold because the draft has a dependency on one or more other documents. A typical example is where an I-D depends on another IETF document that has not yet progressed to a point where it may be referenced; the dependency may be on one or more documents in other IETF working groups or on work-in-progress in other SDOs. This tag should be removed after the dependency is cleared. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 14] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 3.5.8. Waiting for Referencing Document This tag means that completion of the I-D is on-hold because one or more other documents are dependent on it, and the Chair wants to submit all of documents to the IESG (for publication) simultaneously. This tag is the inverse of 3.5.7. This tag should be removed after the dependency is cleared. 3.5.9. Revised I-D Needed This annotation means the I-D needs to be revised (e.g. to address issues raised during a working group last call). This annotation may also be used to indicate when the I-D is in the process of being revised. This tag should be removed after a revised version of the I-D is submitted to the WG. 3.5.10. Revised I-D Needed - Issue raised by AD This annotation means the responsible AD raised one or more issues with the I-D during "AD Evaluation" and that the AD has sent the document back to the working group for revision. This annotation may also be used to indicate when the I-D is in the process of being revised. This tag should be removed after the revised version of the I-D is submitted to the WG. 3.5.11. Revised I-D Needed - Issue raised by IESG This annotation means that one or more IESG members had issues with the I-D during "IESG Evaluation" and the document has been sent back to the working group for revision. This annotation may also be used to indicate that the revision to the I-D is in process. This tag should be removed after the revised version of the I-D is submitted to the WG. 3.5.12. Doc Shepherd Follow-Up Underway This annotation tag may be used to indicate that the shepherd for the WG document has begun working on the write-up required to submit the document (to the IESG) for publication. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 15] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 It is possible that too many I-Ds may arrive in a shepherd's queue in too short a time, and the shepherd cannot create satisfactory write-ups for all of the documents simultaneously. When this annotation tag is set, it means the document shepherd has started work on the write-up for the I-D. The absence or resetting of this annotation tag for an I-D in the "WG Consensus: Waiting for Write-up" state indicates the write-up has not yet been started, or has been put on-hold for some reason. 3.5.13. Other - see Comment Log This annotation tag is a catch-all to indicate that someone (e.g. an author or editor of the document, the WG Chair, the document shepherd) has entered one or more comments about the current status of the I-D into the IETF Datatracker. 3.6. Intended Maturity Level of WG Documents In addition to the annotation tags defined in section 3.5, the intended maturity level of every WG document should also be tracked. Maturity levels are defined in sections 4 and 5 of RFC 2026 [RFC2026]. They are: * "Experimental" * "Informational" * "Best Current Practice" * "Proposed Standard" * "Draft Standard" * "Standard" * "Historic" 4. Security Considerations This document does not propose any new internet mechanisms, and has no security implications for the internet. 5. IANA Considerations This document does not require any new number assignments from IANA, and does not define any new numbering spaces to be administered by IANA. RFC-Editor: Please remove this section before publication. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 16] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 6. References 6.1. Normative References [RFC2418] Bradner, S., Ed., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998. [RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process - Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. 6.2. Informative References [IDTRACKER] "The IETF Datatracker tool", Web Application: https://datatracker.ietf.org/, June 8, 2010. [AUTHGUIDE] Housley, R., Ed., for the IESG, "Guidelines to Authors of Internet-Drafts", February 9, 2010, http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-guidelines.txt. [WGDTSPEC] Juskevicius, E., "Minutes of wgdtspec BOF", Proceedings of IETF 77, March 26, 2010, http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/10mar/minutes/wgdtspec [IESGSTAT] "Main I-D States", Web Application: https://datatracker.ietf.org/idtracker/help/state/, June 8, 2010. [PROTO] Levkowetz, H., and Mankin, A., "Requirements on I-D Tracker Extensions for Working Group Chairs", draft-ietf-proto-wgchair-tracker-ext-03, February 8, 2007. 7. Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Henrik Levkowetz and Allison Mankin for writing the original I-D [PROTO] used by the author as the starting point for earlier versions of this document, and Alfred Hoenes for identifying the need for the "Adopted by a WG" state. The author would also like to thank Henrik Levkowetz, Russ Housley, Alfred Hoenes, Paul Hoffman, John Klensin, Pasi Eronen, Robert Sparks, Spencer Dawkins, Mary Barnes, Glenn Parsons, Marc Blanchet, and Andy Malis for their comments and helpful suggestions. Finally, the author would also like to thank the IETF WG Chairs, ADs and other participants in the wgdtspec BOF at IETF 77 for their insights, discussions, comments and suggestions. This document was initially prepared using 2-Word-v2.0.template.dot. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 17] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 Appendix A: "IESG Document" States This Appendix describes the status information currently stored in the IETF Datatracker tool for every I-D submitted to the IESG for publication. Most of the terms and definitions herein are as in [IESGSTAT]. It must be noted that I-Ds sent to the IESG for publication (termed "IESG Documents" in this Appendix) do not stay with the IESG until the day they are published as RFCs. After evaluation, the IESG may declare that some I-Ds deserve a "Do Not Publish" label. Other I-Ds may become "Dead". Some I-Ds may get sent back to their originators (WGs or otherwise), and the rest may go into the RFC Editor queue. A.1. Definition of "IESG Document" States A.1.1. NULL Documents which are not tracked by the IESG (e.g. I-Ds for which no request has been made of the IESG) are in a NULL state with respect to the IESG state machine. The IESG state of an I-D that has no value assigned to the IESG state variable (in the Datatracker's database) is 'NULL' or 'None'. A.1.2. Publication Requested A formal request has been made to advance/publish the document, following the procedures in Section 7.5 of RFC 2418 [RFC2418]; the request could be from a WG Chair, or from an individual. Note: the Secretariat (iesg-secretary@ietf.org) is copied on these requests to ensure that the request makes it into the Datatracker. A document in this state has not (yet) been reviewed by an Area Director nor has any official action been taken yet, other than to note that its publication has been requested. A.1.3. AD Evaluation A specific Area Director (AD) for the working group has begun his/her review of the document to verify that it is ready for advancement. The shepherding AD is responsible for doing any necessary review before starting an IETF Last Call or sending the document directly to the IESG as a whole. A.1.4. Expert Review An AD may ask for an expert review by an external party as part of evaluating whether a document is ready for advancement. MIBs, for example, are reviewed by "MIB doctors". Other types of reviews may also be requested (e.g., security, operations impacts, etc.). Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 18] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 Documents remain in this state until the review is completed and possibly until the issues raised in the review are addressed. Specific details on the nature of the review may be found in the "note" field associated with this state (i.e. within the Datatracker). A.1.5. Last Call Requested The AD has requested that the Secretariat start an IETF Last Call, but the actual Last Call message has not been sent yet. A.1.6. In Last Call The document is currently waiting for IETF Last Call to complete. Last Calls for WG documents typically last 2 weeks, and those for individual submissions last 4 weeks. A.1.7. Waiting for Write-up Before a standards-track or BCP document is formally considered by the entire IESG, the AD must write-up a protocol action. The protocol action is included in the approval message that the Secretariat sends out when the document is approved for publication as an RFC. A.1.8. Waiting for AD Go-Ahead As a result of the IETF Last Call, comments may need to be responded to and a revision of the I-D may be needed as well. The AD is responsible for verifying that all Last Call comments have been adequately addressed and that the (possibly revised) document is ready for consideration by the IESG as a whole. A.1.9. IESG Evaluation The document is being formally reviewed by the entire IESG. Documents are discussed in email or during a bi-weekly IESG telechat. In this phase, each AD reviews the document and airs any content or process issues she/he may have. Unresolvable issues are documented as "DISCUSS" comments that can be forwarded to the authors/WG. See the description of IESG substates in Section A.2 for additional details about the current state of the IESG discussion. A.1.10. IESG Evaluation - Defer During a telechat, one or more ADs requested an additional two weeks to review the document. A defer is designed to be an exception Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 19] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 mechanism, and can only be invoked once, the first time the document comes up for discussion during a telechat. A.1.11. Approved - Announcement to be sent The IESG has approved the document for publication, but the Secretariat has not (yet) sent an official approval message. A.1.12. Approved - Announcement sent The IESG has approved the document for publication, and the Secretariat has sent out the official approval message to the RFC editor. A.1.13. RFC Ed Queue The document is in the RFC editor Queue (as confirmed by http://www.rfc-editor.org/queue2.html) A.1.14. RFC Published The I-D has been published as an RFC. A.1.15. DNP - Waiting for AD note Do Not Publish: The IESG recommends against publishing the document, but the write-up explaining its reasoning has not yet been produced. DNPs apply primarily to individual submissions. More information on who has the action item should be recorded in the "note" field associated with this state (i.e. within the Datatracker). A.1.16. DNP - Announcement to be sent The IESG recommends against publishing the document. A write-up explaining the IESG's reasoning has been produced, but the Secretariat has not yet sent out the official "do not publish" recommendation message. A.1.17. AD is Watching An AD is aware of the document and has chosen to place the document in a separate state in order to monitor it (for whatever reason). Documents in this state are not actively tracked by the IESG in the sense that no formal request has been made to publish or advance the document. The AD has chosen to put the I-D into this state, to make it easier to keep track of (for his or her own reasons). Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 20] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 A.1.18. Dead The document is "Dead" and is no longer being tracked (e.g., it has been replaced by another document having a different name, it has been withdrawn, etc.). A.2. IESG Document Substates Note that the annotation tags described in this section were defined circa 2002. If these conditioned were modelled today, they would most likely be modelled as annotation tags rather than as "substates". A.2.1. Point Raised - Write-up needed IESG discussions on the document have raised some issues that need to be brought to the attention of the authors/WG, but those issues have not been written down yet. (It is common for discussions during a telechat to result in such situations. An AD may raise a possible issue during a telechat and only decide as a result of that discussion whether the issue is worth formally writing up and bringing to the attention of the authors/WG). A document stays in the "Point Raised - write-up needed" substate until *ALL* IESG blocking comments that were raised have been documented. A.2.2. AD Follow-up "AD Follow-up" is a generic substate indicating that the shepherding AD has the action to determine the appropriate next steps. In particular, the appropriate steps (and the corresponding next state or substate) depend entirely on the nature of the issues that were raised and can only be decided with active involvement of the shepherding AD. Examples include: - if another AD raises an issue, the shepherding AD may first iterate with the other AD to get a better understanding of the exact issue. Or, the shepherding AD may attempt to argue that the issue is not serious enough it to bring to the attention of the authors/WG. - if a documented issue is forwarded to a WG, some further iteration may be needed before it can be determined whether a new revision is needed or whether the WG response to an issue clarifies the issue sufficiently. Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 21] Internet-Draft IETF Working Group Document States June 2010 - when a new revision appears, the shepherding AD will first look at the changes to determine whether they believe all outstanding issues have been raised satisfactorily, prior to asking the ADs who raised the original issues to verify the changes. A.2.3. External Party The document is awaiting review or input from an external party (i.e, someone other than the shepherding AD, the authors, or the WG). See the "note" field for more details on who has the action. A.2.4. Revised I-D Needed An updated I-D is needed to address the issues that have been raised. Author's Address Ed Juskevicius TrekAhead PO Box 491, Carp, ON CANADA Email: edj.etc@gmail.com Juskevicius Expires December 9, 2010 [Page 22]