Skip to main content
  • Banishing the bane of bufferbloat

    Bufferbloat affects everyone who uses the Internet, resulting in frustratingly slow web browsing, laggy video calls, and overall poor quality of experience for Internet users and there's a lot of work underway in the IETF to address it.

    • Bjørn Ivar TeigenIETF Participant
    23 May 2023
  • IETF 116 post-meeting survey

    IETF 116 Yokohama was held 25-31 March 2023 and the results of the post-meeting survey are now available on a web-based interactive dashboard.

    • Jay DaleyIETF Executive Director
    26 Apr 2023
  • Reducing IETF Meeting Scheduling Conflicts

    With many IETF participants active across a number of active working groups and limited time slots in an IETF meeting week, we aim to arrange sessions in the agenda to minimize conflicts that prevent participants from joining sessions that are of interest to them. In each post-meeting survey we ask meeting participants to comment on the scheduling conflicts they experienced in the meeting agenda and we then use this information to improve the meeting agenda.

    • Alexa MorrisIETF Managing Director
    1 Apr 2023
  • Messaging Layer Security: Secure and Usable End-to-End Encryption

    The IETF has approved publication of Messaging Layer Security (MLS), a new standard for end-to-end security that will make it easy for apps to provide the highest level of security to their users. End-to-end encryption is an increasingly important security feature in Internet applications. It keeps users’ information safe even if the cloud service they’re using has been breached.

    • Nick SullivanMLS Working Group Chair
    • Sean TurnerMLS Working Group Chair
    29 Mar 2023
  • Next steps towards a net zero IETF

    Built with input from the IETF community, we now have an initial approach and tools for calculating the IETF’s carbon footprint and a strategy for carbon offsetting. For 2023, we will implement this approach with data already available and seek to further improve it for future years.

    • Greg WoodIETF LLC Director of Communications and Operations
    22 Mar 2023

Filter by topic and date

Filter by topic and date

IASA2 Working Group Chartered

  • Alissa CooperIETF Chair

25 Apr 2018

The IETF has chartered a new working group to document changes to its administrative arrangements.

For legal purposes, the current IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) is organized as an activity of the Internet Society (ISOC). In November 2016, Jari Arkko launched a project as IETF Chair to re-assess the IETF's administrative arrangements. Since then, the IETF community has discussed the challenges we face, the properties we expect from future arrangements, and options for the legal and organizational structure of future arrangements. This process identified that the IETF's administrative tasks have grown; the current organizational structure is not as clear, efficient, or as fully resourced as it should be; aspects of the division of responsibilities between the IETF and ISOC continue to evolve; expectations about transparency have changed; and the IETF faces continued challenges related to funding activities against a backdrop of increasing costs and lack of predictability in our funding streams.

After considering a number of different legal structure options, the community identified the creation of a new limited liability corporation (LLC) that is a disregarded entity of ISOC (i.e., it is treated as a branch or division of ISOC for tax purposes) as the preferred option to house the administration of the IETF. Last week we announced the formation of the IETF Administrative Support Activity 2, which is chartered to document the normative changes to IETF administrative structures and processes necessary to effectuate this change.

I wanted to highlight a few additional important points that have come up in the discussions leading up to this point.

First, aside from instances where they presently relate to IASA, it is outside the scope of this working group to consider any changes to anything related to the oversight or steering of the standards process as currently conducted by the Internet Engineering Steering Group and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the appeal chain, the confirming bodies for existing IETF and IAB appointments, the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), or ISOC's memberships in other organizations.

Second, this work has the support of the Internet Society. The ISOC Board of Trustees has stated their commitment to working with the IETF along the way, and in working with the IETF to implement the outcome of the IASA2 working group process, as needed. Both the IETF community and ISOC expect to reap the benefits of clarifying and solidifying the IETF's administrative structure.

Third, many details remain to be worked out, including decisions about transitioning existing contracts and support functions, about the financial relationship between ISOC and the new LLC (including as regards the IETF Endowment), and about the relationship between the IETF community and those working on behalf of the LLC. I am confident that we will be able to identify arrangements in all of these areas that will strengthen the IETF's ability to achieve its mission of making the Internet work better.

Those interested in joining the discussion are welcome to join the iasa20@ietf.org mailing list.

Bibliography


Share this page