The IETF General Area

The General Area consists of very few IETF WGs and other activities focused on supporting, updating, and maintaining the IETF standards development process. It also looks after any other issues that do not fit in any ot the other IETF Areas. Sometimes, drafts will spend a short time assigned to the General Area, until the IESG decides the IETF Area to which they ought to be assigned.

IETF Chair / IESG Chair / General Area Director

By tradition, the IETF Chair also serves at the IESG Chair and the General Area Director. Specific descriptions of these roles are sparse in IETF process documents.

BCP 9 / RFC 2026 states: "The Area Directors along with the IETF Chair comprise the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG)."

BCP 10 / RFC 3777 states: "No person should serve both on the IAB and as an Area Director, except the IETF Chair whose roles as an IAB member and Area Director of the General Area are set out elsewhere."

BCP 11 / RFC 2028 states: "The IESG is composed of the IETF Area Directors and the chair of the IETF, who also serves as the chair of the IESG."

The IAB Charter, BCP 39 / RFC 2850, identifies the IETF Chair as a voting IAB member.

The IESG Charter RFC 3710, which is an Informational RFC, documents that the IETF Chair is a member of the IESG and acts as the General Area Director. It does not explicitly state that the IETF Chair is the IESG Chair, but it does list some duties for the Chair.

IETF Discussion List Charter, BCP 45 / RFC 3005, gives the IETF Chair a role in managing the main IETF discussion list. In recent years, the day-to-day handlling of these duties have been delegate to a sergeant-at-arms.

The IAB Processes for Management of IETF Liaison Relationships described in BCP 102 / RFC 4052 and the Procedures for Handling Liaison Statements to and from the IETF BCP 103 / RFC 4053 assign specific roles to the IETF Chair in special cases of external liaison handling.

Finally, the Structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) defined in BCP 101 / RFC 4071 states that the IETF Chair is an ex officio voting member of the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC), which in turn makes the IETF Chair a Trustee of the IETF Trust [RFC 4371].

Tasks of the General Area Director

There is not a clear distinction between the three roles held by the IETF Chair / IESG Chair / General Area Director (AD). However, these tasks seem to be associated with the role of General AD.

1. The General AD has the same tasks as any other AD for the General Area, including, remain attentive to emerging ideas, foster BOFs and WGs as appropriate, manage those WGs, shepherd their drafts and any relevant individual submissions. Although the General Area is in theory for any work not covered elsewhere, it is in practice limited to non-technical topics, and it has a strong focus on IETF process topics. This does create a curious situation, which is the constant concern about conflict of interest for the General AD shepherding and advocating work that affects (positively or negatively) their own job.
2. The General AD has the same tasks as any other AD for the management of the IETF standards process, including reviewing all drafts that are brought to the IESG for publication as RFCs in the IETF stream, reviewing all drafts proposed for publication in the IRTF or Independemt Submission streams to ensure that they are not an attempt to bypass the IETF process, reviewing WG charters, and actively participating in any other matters under consideration by the IESG. Recent General ADs have successfully delegated much of the review of IETF stream documents to the General Area Review Team (Gen-ART).
3. By convention, the General AD oversees several ad hoc teams chartered by the IESG. At pleasent these include the EDU Team, the TOOLS Team, and the PROTO Team.

Teams in the General Area

The General Area Review Team provides generalist reviews for the General AD, giving an additional set of eyes checking documents as they are being considered for publication in the IETF stream.

The TOOLS Team provides IETF feedback and guidance during the development of software tools to support various parts of IETF activities.

The EDU Team manages the internal educational activities of the IETF with the goal of improving the effectiveness of IETF operations.

The Process and Tools (PROTO) Team is an IESG-driven activity focused on improving the work flow (e.g. speed) of approval of documents, and the tools that support this work flow. The PROTO Team will advise the IESG on how to improve the scalability, openness, and overall effectiveness of the document procedures and tools.

Last update 2008-10-22 by Russ Housley