Liaisons

The IETF has a limited number of liaison relationships with other organizations. Liaisons are appointed by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) when the IAB feels that conditions warrant appointing a specific person to such a task.

Key Info

Establishing a liaison relationship can provide the framework for ongoing communications to:

  • Prevent inadvertent duplication of effort, without obstructing either organization from pursuing its own mandate
  • Provide authoritative information of one organization’s dependence on the other’s work

Note that such appointments are rare as the best way for organizations to work with the IETF is to do so within the working groups. The primary contact on liaison negotiation is the IAB.

For more information about the procedures that govern IETF liaisons, please see RFC 4052 “IAB Liaison Management” and RFC 4053 (BCP 103) “Procedures for Handling Liaison Statements to and from the IETF.”

A list of liaison statements is available on the IETF Datatracker.

To submit a liaison statement:

  • Outgoing: If you are a Liaison Manager, you can submit an outgoing liaison here after logging into the datatracker
  • Incoming: If you are a Liaison Manager, you can submit an incoming liaison here after logging into the datatracker
  • Submit a liaison statement via email to statements@ietf.org if you prefer not to use the tool

The list of current liaisons appears below: 

    SDO IETF Liaison Manager IAB Liaison Shepherd More Info
    3GPP Gonzalo Camarillo Jeff Tantsura RFC 3113
    Broadband Forum David Sinicrope Brian Trammell
    CableLabs Jason Weil Brian Trammell RFC 4965
    Community Coordination Group Russ Housley, Barry Leiba, Tim Wicinski Ted Hardie
    ECMA TC39 Matt Miller Martin Thomson
    ICANN Board of Directors Harald Alvestrand Wes Hardaker RFC 2691
    ICANN NomCom Peter Koch Ted Hardie
    ICANN RSSAC Daniel Migault Ted Hardie IAB liaison to ICANN Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC)
    ICANN RZERC Jim Reid Ted Hardie
    ICANN TLG Warren Kumari, Tim Wicinski Ted Hardie RFC 2691
    IEEE 802.1 Eric Gray Erik Nordmark RFC 7241
    IEEE-SA Russ Housley Erik Nordmark
    ISO/IEC JTC1 SC2 Patrik Fältström Ted Hardie RFC 3718, Section 7
    ISO/IEC JTC1 SC29 Stephan Wenger Ted Hardie
    ISO/IEC JTC1 SC6 Allison Mankin Ted Hardie
    ISO/TC46 John Klensin Alissa Cooper
    ISO/TC204 Alexandre Petrescu Erik Nordmark
    ITU-T Scott Mansfield Mark Nottingham RFC 6756
    ITU-T SG15 (optical control plane) John Drake Jeff Tantsura
    Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG) Barry Leiba Stephen Farrell
    Multi Stakeholder Platform on ICT Standardisation Mat Ford, Andrei Robachevsky Jari Arkko
    Unicode Patrik Fältström Martin Thomson RFC 3718
    W3C Mark Nottingham Martin Thomson

    Bibliography

    • [1] RFC 4052
      IAB Processes for Management of IETF Liaison Relationships

      This document discusses the procedures used by the IAB to establish and maintain liaison relationships between the IETF and other Standards Development Organizations (SDOs), consortia and industry fora. This document also discusses the appointment and responsibilities of IETF liaison managers an...

    • [2] RFC 4053
      Procedures for Handling Liaison Statements to and from the IETF

      This document describes the procedure for proper handling of incoming liaison statements from other standards development organizations (SDOs), consortia, and industry fora, and for generating liaison statements to be transmitted from IETF to other SDOs, consortia and industry fora. This procedur...