Reviewer: Ted Lemon
Review result: Almost Ready

I reviewed this document as part of the IoT Directorate's effort to IoT-related IETF documents being processed by the IESG.  These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the Internet Area Directors. Document authors, document editors, and WG chairs should treat these comments just like any other IETF Last Call comments.

This document is clear and readable, and appears to cover the topics it set out to cover thoroughly, with one exception. I've marked it "almost ready" because of one specific issue which I will call out first; I've also included some nits that might be worth addressing.

The main issue that I'd like to call out is that in general each role that's described in this document has a section just for that role, but there's one exception: the RSCE. The RSCE is just mentioned in the section on the RPC. If for no other reason that this results in the RSCE not showing up in the table of contents, I think this should be corrected. The current text describing the RSCE also doesn't give me any idea of what the RSCE specifically does, as opposed to "all parties" or other "member[s] of the advisory board." I think this description needs to be expanded upon at least to the point where the reader understands how the RSCE differs from other participants. In addition, "all parties" isn't explained, so I don't actually know who "all parties" includes. I think this should be clarified.

Similarly, the RSWG and RSAB are only mentioned in the RPC section, and probably ought to have sections of their own, even if no further description is given. I think it would be good to add a bit more descriptive text about these two organizations, however.

In addition, I encountered a few puzzles as I was reading:

In section 3.1, IETF, a list of potential IETF participants is given. Two things about this list puzzle me. First, one role explicitly called out is "vendor." I think this sends the wrong message, since IETF members participate as individuals, not as representatives of companies. It's true that "vendors" send representatives to IETF, but these representatives are obliged to participate as individuals, and generally speaking have specific individual roles that I think are more interesting than the "vendor" role. The specific example of such a role I think should be mentioned is "implementor." I think this is a fairly serious omission, although I wouldn't go so far as to say that it must be corrected.

In the last paragraph of section 3.2, "Working Groups," the term "technically superior" is used to describe the protocols and services the IETF aspires to standardize. I think this is a bit misleading. I can remember numerous cases where several solutions were available for a specific problem, and where the "technically superior" distinction was not useful in deciding between them. I think "technically excellent" might be a better choice of words here.

In section 3.5, the term "open group" is used to describe the RSWG. Hm, I'm realizing that like the RSCE, this should be in its own section, so that it shows up in the TOC. Anyway, the point being, it would be good to say what "open" means here. I think it means open in the same sense that the IETF is open, so perhaps a reference to the IETF would work here.

In section 3.7, the distinction "shorter term" and "longer term" are used to distinguish between IRTF groups and IETF groups. I don't think that's really a necessarily valid distinction, although I agree that it tends generally to hold. I think the actual dichotomy is "research into insufficiently well-understood topics" as opposed to "practical issues of engineering and standards-making." I would suggest tweaking this text to avoid the short term/long term distinction, since I think it doesn't do a good job of illuminating the difference between the IRTF and IETF.  The other text about the distinctions between the two organizations seems fine.

Thanks for doing this work, and for the clear and readable writing—the document was easy to read and review.