Network Working Group J. N. Brownlee Internet-Draft U Auckland Intended status: Informational 25 May 2020 Expires: 26 November 2020 Changes to the RFC Series and RSE draft-brownlee-rfc-series-and-rse-changes-00 Abstract This document discusses the impact of changes to the RFC Series on the RFC Production Centre, and the need for the RFC Series Editor to be independent of the Series Input Streams (the I* groups). Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 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." This Internet-Draft will expire on 26 November 2020. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2020 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 (https://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. Brownlee Expires 26 November 2020 [Page 1] Internet-Draft RFC Series Changes May 2020 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. RSE Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3. Changes to the RFC Series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Support for the RSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5. Oversight and Administration for the RSE . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. Independence of the RSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 7. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Appendix A. Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove.] . . . . . . 6 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1. Introduction Over the last few weeks the rfced-future mailing list has discussed topics such as: * What are the responsibilities of the RFC Series Editor? * How should changes to the RFC Series be handled? * Where does the RFC Series Editor (RSE) fit, relative to the RFC input Streams, i.e. the IAB, IESG, IRTF and Independent Submissions Editor (ISE)? * What does _independent_ mean for the RSE? This draft addresses those topics in a little more detail. The history of our "new formats" in Section 3 of this draft comes from my own experiences on their Design Team. I present them here because I feel that many IETF participants have not considered just how much work is required to make changes to the RFC Series. Otherwise, opinions expressed in this draft are purely my own. 2. RSE Responsibilities RFC Series Editor Responsibilities are clearly set out in [RFC8729], "The RFC Series and RFC Editor", February 2020. These responsibilities have been discussed extensively on the *rfced- future@iab.org* mailing list. I believe that they do not need to be further discussed at this time. Brownlee Expires 26 November 2020 [Page 2] Internet-Draft RFC Series Changes May 2020 3. Changes to the RFC Series Our last RSE was appointed (and contracted directly by ISOC) in 2011. Her first few years were busy: * About one year to get up to speed with the RFC Production Centre (RPC). * Two years and three BOFs to come up with [RFC6949], "RFC Series Format Requirements," May _2013_. * Another three years for a large design team (at least 8 members) to produce [RFC7990], "RFC Format Framework", December _2016_, [RFC7991], "The _'xml2rfc'_ Version 3 Vocabulary", and RFCs 7992 to 7998, which covered other details of the "new" formats. * Implementation of xml2rfc v3 tools by the IETF Tools Team, mostly as contracted work. RFC 7990 recognised that it would take time to implement these changes; its' section 10.2, "Testing and Transition" said: Feedback will result in regular iteration of the basic code and XML vocabulary. In order to limit the amount of time the RFC Production Center (RPC) spends on testing and quality assurance (QA), their priority will be to edit and publish documents; therefore, community assistance will be necessary to help move this stage along. The critical points here are: 1. Changes must not impact productivity of the RPC. 2. Development and testing of _any_ changes will take significant time. 3. Development will need regular iterations. 4. Support for the RSE Because changes to the RFC Series take months or years, the RSE's term needs to be for a minimum term of - say - five years. The RSE needs a Support Group, similar to an IETF WG, that the RSE can use to discuss issues arising, and to determine community support for any new change proposals. That Support Group must be independent of any of our I* groups, e.g. of the IAB, IETF, IRTF and ISE. Brownlee Expires 26 November 2020 [Page 3] Internet-Draft RFC Series Changes May 2020 The RSE has such a group already, that's the RFC Series Advisory Group (RSAG), its members all have extensive knowledge of publishing in general and the RFC Series in particular. However, its members have all been recruited over the years by successive RFC Editors, and they provide _advice_, not _oversight_. Right now the RFC Editor Future Development Program seems to be an effective oversight group for the RSE, however it's an IAB Program, which implies that the IAB has oversight of it. I suggest that: 1. The RFC Editor Future Development Program should be separated from the IAB, to become a free-standing Working Group, using the rfced-future mailing list for RFC Series discussions, end for calling consensus once a change has been discussed on that list. If consensus-agreed changes require new tools: * If suitable (open-source) tools exist, we should use them. * Otherwise, a (part-time) Project Manager should be employed to oversee their implementation. 5. Oversight and Administration for the RSE Of course the RSE needs to report on each year's activities, at least to members of all the RFC input Streams, at the last IETF meeting's Plenary in each year. As well, employment matters such as contract negotiation and extension or replacement are needed. Perhaps the LLC Executive Director - for example - could handle these? 6. Independence of the RSE [I-D.carpenter-rfc-principles], section 3.2 "The RFC Series Editor," describes the RSE as "an _independent_ professional editor, serving a much wider community than just the IETF." _Independence,_ in this context, has been extensively discussed on the rfced-future mailing list. To summarise: * The RSE cannot refuse to publish a submission from any of the four Input Streams for _technical_ reasons. Technical consensus will already have been reached within the submitting Stream. Brownlee Expires 26 November 2020 [Page 4] Internet-Draft RFC Series Changes May 2020 * The RSE, however, may send back a submission because it would require an unreasonable amount of editing to conform to a proper RFC Style. In such a case the submitting Stream should help the submission's authors to improve it before resubmitting it to the RSE. 7. Conclusion This draft recounts the history of the RFC's "new formats" work from about 2012 to 2018, making the point that such changes can be large- scale projects that take several years to complete. Any further changes to the Series must therefore be carefully considered, with the RSE overseeing a clear consensus process before any implementation work is begun. Other issues such as where the RSE belongs relative to our I* groups, and what degree of independence the RSE should have, are discussed. As well, some suggestions are made as to how they could be addressed. Feedback for improvements on those suggestions, or any other aspects of this draft, will help it's author to improve it; please send comments to me at the "Author's Address" below. 8. Security Considerations This draft concerns organisational matters rather than networking matters. It therefore does not have any network security concerns. 9. IANA Considerations This document makes no request of the IANA. 10. Acknowledgements Thanks to all those contributing to discussions on the rfced-future mailing list. Those discussions have been wide-ranging, informative and useful. Thanks especially to Brian Carpenter. His draft [I-D.carpenter-rfc-principles] motivated me to produce this one. 11. References Brownlee Expires 26 November 2020 [Page 5] Internet-Draft RFC Series Changes May 2020 [I-D.carpenter-rfc-principles] Carpenter, B., "Principles of the Request for Comments Series", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft- carpenter-rfc-principles-01, 17 May 2020, . [RFC6949] Flanagan, H. and N. Brownlee, "RFC Series Format Requirements and Future Development", RFC 6949, DOI 10.17487/RFC6949, May 2013, . [RFC7990] Flanagan, H., "RFC Format Framework", RFC 7990, DOI 10.17487/RFC7990, December 2016, . [RFC7991] Hoffman, P., "The "xml2rfc" Version 3 Vocabulary", RFC 7991, DOI 10.17487/RFC7991, December 2016, . [RFC8729] Housley, R., Ed. and L. Daigle, Ed., "The RFC Series and RFC Editor", RFC 8729, DOI 10.17487/RFC8729, February 2020, . Appendix A. Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove.] 1. draft-brownlee-rfc-changes-and-the-RSE-00 * Initial version, 25 May 2020 Author's Address Nevil Brownlee School of Computer Science University of Auckland Private Bag 92019 Auckland 1142 New Zealand Email: nevil.brownlee@gmail.com Brownlee Expires 26 November 2020 [Page 6]