WG Action: New IETF Standards Track (newtrk)

[The IESG <iesg-secretary at ietf.org>]

A new IETF working group has been formed in the General Area. For additional 
information, please contact the Area Directors or the WG Chairs.

New IETF Standards Track (newtrk)
---------------------------------

   Current Status: Active Working Group

   Chair(s):
   Scott Bradner <sob@harvard.edu>

   General Area Director(s):
   Harald Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>

   General Area Advisor:
   Harald Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>

   Mailing Lists:
   General Discussion: newtrk@lists.uoregon.edu
   To Subscribe: newtrk-request@lists.uoregon.edu
   Archive: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~llynch/newtrk/index.html


   Description of Working Group:

   The problem working group found that many IETF participants feel that the
   current IETF hierarchy of Proposed, Draft and Full Standard maturity
   levels for specifications is no longer being used in the way that was
   envisioned when the stratification was originally proposed. In practice,
   the IETF currently has a one-step standards process. The goal of this
   working group is to agree on a revised IETF Standards Track, to replace
   the standards track described in RFC 2026. The working group will also
   decide on a process path forward.

   The disparity between the documented IETF standards process and what is
   used in practice can cause confusion on the part of those people or
   organizations that use IETF technologies. It has also led to a general
   disregard of the cautions in RFC 2026 on the appropriate deployment of
   IETF technologies described in Internet Drafts or Proposed Standard RFCs.

   The NewTrk working group is a follow on to the newtrk BOF held during the
   58th IETF Meeting in Minneapolis. That BOF was held as a result of the
   work of the problem working group.

   The sense of the room at the end of the newtrk BOF was that:
   1/ some change was needed to the IETF Standards Track
   2/ a revised standards track should have more than one stage
   3/ there should be some form of "working group snapshot," this might or
   might not be a formal stage on the standards track and might or might not
   be an archival publication
   4/ at least one stage should require multiple interoperable
   implementations of the technology to ensure document clarity
   5/ any revised standards track should include some type of "IPR hook" to
   keep the IETF and IESG out of the business of determining what IPR claims
   are legitimate and what licensing terms are fair.

   The goal of this working group is to agree on a revised IETF Standards
   Track, taking into consideration the above points, to replace the
   standards track described in RFC 2026. The working group will also decide
   on a process for making forward progress. Some of the possible paths being
   producing a revised version of RFC 2026 (and maybe other RFCs), producing
   a standalone document or documents that update parts of the existing RFCs
   or a mixture of the two. There may be other possibilities.

   The working group should also take into account other issues raised by the
   problem working group and during the newtrk BOF as needed.

   The deliberations of the working group will cover at least the following
   topics:
   a/ the standards track itself (number of stages, movement between maturity
   levels, working group snapshots, maintenance, IPR issues)
   b/ access to the standards track for individual submissions
   c/ non-standards track document categories including BCP, Informational,
   Experimental, and Historic and their relationship to the standards track
   d/ usability of the standards track (bug fixes, version numbers, grouping
   multiple specifications, and maybe deprecation)
   e/ development of a primary marker to distinguish documents originating
   from the IETF from those not originating from the IETF

   The NewTrk working group will coordinate its work with other reform
   activities currently underway in the IETF.

   Goals and Milestones:
   jun 2004 publish initial Internet-Draft(s) describing a revised IETF
   standards track
   mar 2005 submit final Internet-Draft(s) describing a revised IETF
   standards track to IESG for publication as a BCP