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2 Network Working Group P. Hoffman
3 Internet-Draft VPN Consortium
4 Intended status: Informational February 22, 2011
5 Expires: August 26, 2011
7 Requirements for Internet-Draft Tracking by the IETF Community in the
8 Datatracker
9 draft-ietf-genarea-datatracker-community-06
11 Abstract
13 The document gives a set of requirements for extending the IETF
14 Datatracker to give individual IETF community members, including the
15 IETF leadership, easy methods for tracking the progress of the
16 Internet-Drafts and RFCs of interest to them.
18 Status of this Memo
20 This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
21 provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
23 Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
24 Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
25 working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
26 Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
28 Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
29 and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
30 time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
31 material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
33 This Internet-Draft will expire on August 26, 2011.
35 Copyright Notice
37 Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
38 document authors. All rights reserved.
40 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
41 Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
42 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
43 publication of this document. Please review these documents
44 carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
45 to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
46 include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
47 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
48 described in the Simplified BSD License.
50 Table of Contents
52 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
53 1.1. Usage Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
54 1.2. Context for This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
55 1.3. Definitions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
56 1.4. Expected user interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
57 1.5. Discussion of These Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
58 2. Requirements for Tools Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
59 2.1. Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
60 2.1.1. Requirement: Lists of I-Ds and RFCs can be large . . . 7
61 2.1.2. Requirement: Every Datatracker user can create a
62 list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
63 2.1.3. Requirement: Read-only views of private lists can
64 be made visible to others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
65 2.1.4. Requirement: The Datatracker must support optional
66 publicly-readable lists for WGs and Area Directors . . 8
67 2.1.5. Requirement: Specifying the I-Ds and RFCs that are
68 in a list must be simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
69 2.1.6. Requirement: Adding groups of I-Ds to a list by
70 attribute must be simple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
71 2.1.7. Requirement: Private information must not be
72 exposed in lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
73 2.2. Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
74 2.2.1. Requirement: Users can be notified when an I-D
75 changes status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
76 2.2.2. Requirement: Every list has Atom feeds associated
77 with it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
78 2.2.3. Requirement: Every list has mail streams
79 associated with it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
80 2.2.4. Requirement: Notifications need to specify which
81 list caused the notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
82 2.3. Display in the Datatracker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
83 2.3.1. Requirement: Users can define their Datatracker
84 document view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
85 2.3.2. Requirement: Users can choose which attributes to
86 display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
87 2.3.3. Requirement: Users can flag I-Ds with dates in the
88 future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
89 2.3.4. Requirement: Users can specify highlighting of
90 I-Ds and RFCs with recent changes . . . . . . . . . . 13
91 2.4. File Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
92 2.4.1. Requirement: Users can get their current list as a
93 single file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
94 3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
95 4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
96 5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
97 6. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
98 Appendix A. Possible Tracking of Other Documents . . . . . . . . 15
99 A.1. Tracking WG Charter Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
100 A.2. Tracking IANA Registry Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
101 A.3. Tracking Changes in the Liason Statement Directory . . . . 16
102 A.4. Tracking Changes in Documents Outside the IETF Sphere . . 16
103 A.5. Tracking Additions to the IPR Statement Repository . . . . 16
104 Appendix B. Ideas that Might Be Implemented Later . . . . . . . . 16
105 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
107 1. Introduction
109 The IETF Datatracker is used by many IETF community members to find
110 the status of Internet-Drafts (I-Ds) and RFCs, and view I-Ds and RFCs
111 that meet particular criteria. The current Datatracker, found at
112 , allows anyone to search for active
113 I-Ds and RFCs, and get a list matching the given criteria. (The
114 Datatracker also allows for expired I-Ds, but those are not relevant
115 to this discussion.)
117 Users can search in the Datatracker by the filename of the I-D, words
118 in the I-D title, I-D author list, associated Working Group (WG),
119 IETF area, the responsible Area Director (AD), or IESG status. They
120 can search for RFCs by number or words in the title. The returned
121 list of I-Ds and/or RFCs includes five columns: filename or RFC
122 number (with an active link to an HTMLized version maintained by the
123 IETF tools team), the document's title, the date it was published,
124 its status in the IETF or RFC process, and the responsible AD (if
125 any). For example, the output of a search in the current Datatracker
126 can be seen at .
128 Instead of using the search capability of the Datatracker to manually
129 find I-Ds and RFCs of interest, users might want to create a list of
130 I-Ds that they normally follow. Some users will want to keep their
131 list to themselves, but others will want to allow others to view
132 their list.
134 Different users in the IETF community will have different ways that
135 they want to get information on I-D and RFC updates and status. Many
136 users will want to be notified immediately, such as through an Atom
137 feed (see [RFC4287]) or automatically-generated email. Many users
138 will want to only find out about updates when they go to a web page.
139 Many users might want to get the data for a list as input to other
140 tools. And, of course, some users will want all three. All of these
141 assist users in tracking I-Ds through their lifecycle.
143 1.1. Usage Scenarios
145 The main motivation for these proposed changes to the Datatracker is
146 to allow a variety of potential users to be able to track I-Ds and
147 RFCs, and thus be better able to see when important events happen. A
148 few examples include:
150 o A WG chair might want to keep a list of all the I-Ds from other
151 WGs that relate to active I-Ds in his or her WG.
153 o That same WG chair might want to help WG members be able to follow
154 the same I-Ds that he or she is following.
156 o Someone who cares about an established topic such as the DNS may
157 want to follow the various I-Ds that might make changes to the
158 DNS, as well as seeing if any of the DNS RFCs are later updated
159 and/or have errata posted against them. This would include not
160 only I-Ds that are in the many WGs that directly are changing the
161 DNS (DNSEXT, DNSOP, BEHAVE, and so on), but also individual
162 submissions, IAB I-Ds, and even IRTF research. It would also
163 include RFCs from before when WGs were tracked.
165 o Developers who are not active in the IETF process might want to
166 lightly follow I-Ds and RFCs on a particular topic to watch for
167 things that might affect their implementations.
169 o An IETF "regular" might want to follow parts of the process by
170 focusing on all the I-Ds that are being shepherded by a particular
171 Area Director.
173 1.2. Context for This Document
175 This document describes the requirements for extending the
176 Datatracker for such capabilities. When complete, this document may
177 be used to issue an RFP for the design and development of these
178 enhancements to the Datatracker.
180 Some of the requirements in this document are listed as "later
181 requirements". It is expected that items listed in this document
182 would be part of the initial RFP because they provide the highest
183 benefit to the community; the later requirements might be part of a
184 later RFP.
186 The initial general requirements that led to the specific
187 requirements this document described tools that include:
189 o the ability to create one or more (possibly large) lists of I-Ds
190 that they want to follow
192 o the ability to get notifications when individual I-Ds from a list
193 changes state
195 o the ability to see all of the state changes that have occurred on
196 all the I-Ds in a list over a specified range of dates
198 o the ability to set the granularity of the changes (such as "every
199 change", "just approvals and publication", and so on)
201 o the ability to organize their views of a list in many fashions
202 that would be useful to different types of community members
204 o the ability to share and merge lists with other community members
206 Note that [RFC2026] describes the process that I-Ds go through before
207 they either become RFCs or are abandoned. The Datatracker does not
208 control this process: instead, it simply reports on the current state
209 of each I-D as it goes through the process.
211 1.3. Definitions Used in This Document
213 A "user" is an individual person who is member of the IETF community.
215 A "list" is an unordered set of RFCs, I-Ds, and groups of I-Ds.
216 Lists are specified by users. In some cases, the authors are role-
217 based, such as a WG chair being the specifier of the list associated
218 with that WG.
220 An "attribute" is a feature of an I-D or RFC, such as its filename or
221 RFC number, its current state in the IETF or RFC process, and so on.
222 Attributes are usually displayed as columns in the Datatracker.
224 A "row" is a set of attributes about a single I-D or RFC that is
225 displayed in the Datatracker.
227 A "significant change in status" is all approvals and disposition of
228 an I-D. Assuming that the changes to the Datatracker specified in
229 [WGSTATES] and [ALTSTREAMS] are made, "all approvals" means the
230 following:
232 o IETF stream: the WG states "Adopted by a WG", "In WG Last Call",
233 "WG Consensus: Waiting for Write-up", "Parked WG document", and
234 "Dead WG document"; the IESG states "Publication Requested", "In
235 Last Call", and "IESG Evaluation"
237 o IAB stream: "Active IAB Document", "Community Review", and "Sent
238 to the RFC Editor"
240 o IRTF stream: "Active RG Document", "In RG Last Call", "Awaiting
241 IRSG Reviews", "In IESG Review", "Sent to the RFC Editor", and
242 "Document on Hold Based On IESG Request"
244 o ISE stream: "Submission Received", "In ISE Review", "In IESG
245 Review", "Sent to the RFC Editor", and "Document on Hold Based On
246 IESG Request"
248 o All streams: in addition to the above, the disposition states
249 "Approved", "RFC Published", and "Dead" are also included
251 An "update to an RFC" is the announcement of a newer RFC that updates
252 or obsoletes the base RFC, or an announcement of an errata posted for
253 the base RFC.
255 1.4. Expected user interactions
257 When a user wants to follow a group of I-Ds and/or RFCs, he or she
258 goes to the Datatracker and creates a new list. The requirements for
259 lists are given in Section 2.1. After a list is created, the user
260 has three ways that he or she might see when I-Ds and/or RFCs in the
261 list are updated:
263 o By going to the Datatracker page for the list (see Section 2.3)
265 o By subscribing to the Atom feed for the list (see Section 2.2.2)
266 in a feed reader that automatically fetches updates
268 o By subscribing to the mail stream for the list (see Section 2.2.3)
269 and reading the mail stream in their mail reader
271 1.5. Discussion of These Requirements
273 [[ This section is to be removed before the RFC is published. ]]
275 This document is being discussed on the datatracker-rqmts@ietf.org
276 mailing list. For more information, see
277 .
279 There will probably be virtual interim meetings to discuss this
280 document in early 2011.
282 2. Requirements for Tools Features
284 This section defines the requirements for the tool described earlier
285 in this document. The eventual tool, if implemented, may have more
286 features than are listed here; however, before this document is
287 finished, it should contain as many requirements as possible upon
288 which the IETF community can agree.
290 2.1. Lists
292 2.1.1. Requirement: Lists of I-Ds and RFCs can be large
294 An active IETF participant might want to follow the status of
295 hundreds of I-Ds and dozens of RFCs. For example, some ADs have 100
296 I-Ds in their area, and they may also want to follow I-Ds outside
297 their area that affect documents in their area.
299 2.1.2. Requirement: Every Datatracker user can create a list
301 When a user gets a Datatracker account, that account comes with an
302 empty list pre-defined. The list can normally be modified only by
303 the owner of the account, although the Secretariat can also modify
304 the list as part of its support role for the Datatracker.
306 In order for this requirement to be met, it must be easy for any
307 community member to get a Datatracker account. Account setup must
308 not involve any direct action on the part of the Secretariat.
309 However, the Secretariat will be responsible for support of
310 Datatracker accounts (lost passwords, odd interactions, and so on),
311 so this addition of more Datatracker accounts will potentially
312 increase the amount of work the Secretariat must do.
314 The only person who can edit the contents of a private list is the
315 person who knows the password to the account with which the list is
316 associated.
318 2.1.3. Requirement: Read-only views of private lists can be made
319 visible to others
321 Some users will want to make available a read-only view of their
322 list. Each private list will have a URL that leads to the
323 Datatracker view of the list; that URL must be able to be shared
324 without giving others the ability to edit the list. Similarly, the
325 Atom feed associated with a private list must be able to be shared
326 without giving others the ability to edit the list.
328 2.1.4. Requirement: The Datatracker must support optional publicly-
329 readable lists for WGs and Area Directors
331 It is common in the IETF for users to follow the work of an entire
332 WG, not just single I-Ds and RFCs within a WG. It is also very
333 common that some work that is related to a WG happens outside the WG,
334 either in other WGs or as individual efforts. Many WG chairs monitor
335 this outside-the-WG activity for various reasons.
337 A smaller number of community members to follow an entire Area's
338 worth of topics. Again, these topics often happen within the WGs of
339 an area, but not always; for example, some topics related to the
340 Security Area happen in WGs in the Applications Area.
342 Because of this, it would be useful for community members to be able
343 to find a list which corresponds to the WGs or Areas in which they
344 are interested. The WG lists could be maintained by the WG chairs;
345 the Area lists would likely be maintained by the ADs. Note that such
346 lists are not mandatory; for example, a WG chair might not choose to
347 maintain such a list for a WG whose topic is extremely broad.
349 Both Working Group chairs and Area Directors currently already have
350 Datatracker accounts, so fulfilling this requirement only involves
351 associating those accounts with the role that controls the list.
353 2.1.5. Requirement: Specifying the I-Ds and RFCs that are in a list
354 must be simple
356 When a user creates a new list, it must be easy to add single I-Ds
357 and RFCs to the list. This could be done using the Datatracker's
358 current search facility, and simply adding a "add to list" option to
359 the display of searched-for I-Ds. Further, when editing an existing
360 list, it must be easy to add additional I-Ds and RFCs, and it must be
361 easy to remove I-Ds and RFCs from a list.
363 2.1.6. Requirement: Adding groups of I-Ds to a list by attribute must
364 be simple
366 I-Ds have many attributes, and some users might want to follow all of
367 the I-Ds that have a particular attribute. Some, but not all,
368 attributes have values that make sense in specifying lists. It
369 should be easy to add each of the following attributes when adding to
370 or editing a list:
372 o All I-Ds associated with an particular WG
374 o All I-Ds associated with all WGs in an particular Area
376 o All I-Ds with a particular responsible AD
378 o All I-Ds with a particular author
380 o All I-Ds with a particular document shepherd
382 o All I-Ds that have a reference to a particular RFC
384 o All I-Ds that have a reference to a particular I-D
386 o All I-Ds that are referenced by a particular RFC
388 o All I-Ds that are referenced by a particular I-D
390 o All I-Ds that contain a particular text string
392 These attributes are dynamic, and thus the list of I-Ds that have a
393 particular attribute will change after the user adds that attribute
394 to a list. The Datatracker should update lists with dynamic
395 attributes as often as is sensible for the server environment, such
396 as once an hour or more.
398 Note that some of these attributes are based on heuristics derived by
399 programs that parse I-Ds, and are therefore inherently not completely
400 reliable.
402 2.1.7. Requirement: Private information must not be exposed in lists
404 Any private information in the Datatracker must be excluded from any
405 displays of the lists or mail streams. This private information
406 includes private notes in the IESG balloting for an I-D, and probably
407 other data that currently is restricted to being seen by certain
408 members of the IETF leadership.
410 2.2. Notifications
412 2.2.1. Requirement: Users can be notified when an I-D changes status
414 Some users do not want to go to the Datatracker's display page to
415 find out when an I-D or RFC has been updated. Instead, they want to
416 be notified immediately after the change. The Datatracker needs to
417 support this type of immediate notification, where "immediate" means
418 within an hour of a change to any I-D or RFC in the list. This
419 requirement can be met with Atom feeds and mail streams, as described
420 in the next two sections.
422 The Datatracker might create a generic "notifications engine" that
423 can be used to generate the Atom feeds and mail streams. This engine
424 can then be used to later add other notification types, such as a
425 Jabber feed.
427 2.2.2. Requirement: Every list has Atom feeds associated with it
429 The list will have two Atom feeds that are generated from the changes
430 to the list: one for every change in status, and another for
431 significant change of status. Each Atom feed will have a stable URL
432 that can be used by feed readers.
434 Many IETF users are already using Atom feeds created by the IETF
435 Tools Team for single I-Ds. Using the new feeds for lists described
436 here will allow them to have better selection capabilities to reduce
437 the number of feeds they need to follow.
439 2.2.3. Requirement: Every list has mail streams associated with it
441 A user can subscribe to two mail streams that are generated from the
442 changes to the list: one for every change in status, and another for
443 significant change of status.
445 Note that the mail streams are for each change; they are not batched
446 (such as one message per day). Users who want less frequent but
447 batched notifications need to use the Atom feeds instead of the mail
448 streams.
450 2.2.4. Requirement: Notifications need to specify which list caused the
451 notification
453 Users might have feeds and/or subscriptions to multiple lists. In
454 order to disambiguate duplicate notifications from multiple lists,
455 the body of the message in the Atom feed or mail stream needs to say
456 which list generated the notification. (Ideally, a user who wants
457 notifications will make one list based on multiple lists, but if they
458 subscribe to multiple lists, this requirement will at least suggest
459 to them that they want to limit their overlapping subscriptions.)
461 2.3. Display in the Datatracker
463 2.3.1. Requirement: Users can define their Datatracker document view
465 There are many ways that a user might want to see the Datatracker's
466 HTML view of a list. For example, a user might want the view
467 displayed in alphabetical order by the I-Ds' filenames and RFC
468 numbers, but after the user is of the net for a week, he or she might
469 want the view displayed in order of changes of status so that those
470 I-Ds and RFCs changed recently appear at the top.
472 The default is to first list the groups first in alphabetical order
473 by group name, then single I-Ds in alphabetical order by I-D
474 filename, with RFCs at the end. When displaying a list, the
475 Datatracker should allow easy sorting of the I-Ds with the following
476 collation orders:
478 o Alphabetical order by group name followed by single I-Ds and RFCs
479 (default)
481 o Alphabetical by I-D filename and RFC number
483 o Alphabetical by document title
485 o Alphabetical by associated WG
487 o Date of publication of current version of the document
489 o Date of most recent change of status of any type
490 o Date of most recent significant change of status
492 In displays, a particular I-D or RFC should only included once; for
493 example, if someone manually adds draft-ietf-cuteacronym-sometopic to
494 his list and also specifies that all I-Ds from the "cuteacronym" WG
495 are included in the list, that I-D should only appear once in the
496 display. The column saying which included list(s) contain this I-D
497 helps alleviate this loss of information.
499 The user might also want to group the I-Ds using the groupings in the
500 list, such as "all I-Ds from this WG" and "all I-Ds that contain this
501 word in the title".
503 The Datatracker should save the last-chosen sorting for display with
504 the definition of the list.
506 2.3.2. Requirement: Users can choose which attributes to display
508 There are many attributes that might be displayed, and different
509 users will have different information that they want to see. Also,
510 users will have different display technologies: someone might
511 normally use a web browser on a large screen, but at other times use
512 the browser on their phone.
514 Choosing which attributes should be displayed should be simple for
515 the user. The Datatracker should save the last-chosen set of
516 attributes for display with the definition of the list. The default
517 is to display is I-D filename or RFC number, document title, date of
518 current I-D or RFC publication date, status in the RFC stream or RFC
519 process, associated WG or RG, whether it was changed within the last
520 7 days, and included list(s) which contain this I-D.
522 The Datatracker should support display of the following attributes:
524 o I-D filename
526 o I-D title
528 o Date of current I-D
530 o Status in the IETF process
532 o Associated WG or RG
534 o Associated AD, if any
536 o Changed within the last 1 day
537 o Changed within the last 2 days
539 o Changed within the last 7 days
541 There is some leeway for how the Datatracker might display these
542 attributes. For example, the "changed within" attributes might be
543 shown with a check mark or a colored box.
545 2.3.3. Requirement: Users can flag I-Ds with dates in the future
547 When tracking I-Ds, some users want to be able to say "tell me if
548 this I-D has not changes state by a particular date" such as when an
549 I-D is starting a two-week last call or an I-D author has promised a
550 new version by the end of the week. This feature gives the user a
551 "dashboard" style capability.
553 For each I-D, the user should be able to set a marker date by which
554 an update is expected. The Datatracker display will provide a visual
555 indication if the marker date has passed but no change in status has
556 occurred. It must be very easy for the user to remove these update-
557 expected markers.
559 2.3.4. Requirement: Users can specify highlighting of I-Ds and RFCs
560 with recent changes
562 The Datatracker cannot easily keep track of when a user last looked
563 at the page for a particular list. Thus, it instead needs to let a
564 user say which range of dates they are most interested in. To that
565 end, the user needs to be able to easily specify the amount of time
566 they consider recent, either as "the past nnn hours", "the past nnn
567 days", or "since this particular date".
569 2.4. File Output
571 2.4.1. Requirement: Users can get their current list as a single file
573 Some users have their own tools for displaying and otherwise
574 processing lists of I-Ds and RFCs. To make this easier, users should
575 be able to get a machine-parsable file that has a well-known format
576 and syntax that contains all the data that was used to create the
577 current display. The order of the records in the file is not
578 important because it is assumed that the user's program will sort the
579 results themselves. All attributes will be included because it is
580 assumed that the user's programs will only deal with the ones the
581 user cares about.
583 When a list is marshaled into a data file, each record in the file
584 format represents a single I-D or RFC. In a file, a particular I-D
585 or RFC is only included once; for example, if someone manually adds
586 draft-ietf-cuteacronym-sometopic to his list and also specifies that
587 all I-Ds from the "cuteacronym" WG are included in the list, that I-D
588 only appears once.
590 This feature will allow anyone to create mash-ups of their own and
591 create their own web sites based on the IETF data. This is
592 significantly easier than adding features to the Datatracker, and is
593 able to cater to narrow audiences. The format of this file has yet
594 to be determined.
596 3. IANA Considerations
598 None.
600 4. Security Considerations
602 A tool for tracking the status of I-Ds and RFCs can affect the
603 privacy of its users. Someone could possibly determine relevant
604 information about a user if they knew what that user was tracking.
606 Web applications, particularly those that store data on a web server,
607 are a common source of security issues such as cross-site scripting
608 attacks. The tool described in this document might also use access
609 control for lists, and access control and authentication also cause
610 security issues if not implemented properly.
612 5. Acknowledgements
614 Ideas used in this document were contributed by Scott Bradner, Leslie
615 Daigle, Spencer Dawkins, Aaron Falk, Russ Housley, Tero Kivinen,
616 Barry Leiba, John Levine, Henrik Levkowetz, Kurtis Lindqvist, Andy
617 Malis, Ray Pelletier, Blake Ramsdell, Julian Reschke, Jim Schaad,
618 Yaron Sheffer, Robert Sparks, Andrew Sullivan, and Sean Turner.
620 6. Informative References
622 [ALTSTREAMS]
623 Hoffman, P., "Data Tracker States and Annotations for the
624 IAB, IRTF, and Independent Submission Streams",
625 draft-hoffman-alt-streams-tracker (work in progress),
626 September 2010.
628 [CHARTERTOOL]
629 Hoffman, P., "Requirements for a Working Group Charter
630 Tool", draft-ietf-genarea-charter-tool (work in progress),
631 October 2010.
633 [RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
634 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996.
636 [RFC4287] Nottingham, M., Ed. and R. Sayre, Ed., "The Atom
637 Syndication Format", RFC 4287, December 2005.
639 [WGSTATES]
640 Juskevicius, E., "Definition of IETF Working Group
641 Document States", draft-ietf-proto-wgdocument-states (work
642 in progress), October 2010.
644 Appendix A. Possible Tracking of Other Documents
646 It is not at all clear if any of these will be a requirement, a later
647 requirement, or a non-requirement. Further, even if one or more of
648 these non-I-D items is made a requirement, it is not clear whether
649 they will be included in the same lists with I-Ds. That is, if
650 tracking IANA registry changes are considered a requirement, it is
651 not clear whether a user would include the registries in a list that
652 also contains I-Ds, or whether they would need to create two lists,
653 one for I-Ds and one for IANA registries.
655 A.1. Tracking WG Charter Changes
657 It will soon be easier to track changes in WG charters and
658 milestones; see [CHARTERTOOL] for more information. Someone
659 subscribing to the mail stream for a WG would be able to see each of
660 these changes. With the expected changes, the Datatracker would be
661 able to update WGs in a list without any polling.
663 A.2. Tracking IANA Registry Changes
665 Developers may need to get values from IANA registries for their
666 software/hardware implementations. They might want to know when the
667 registry changes, such as additional entries or updates to current
668 entries. Thus, being able to be notified when a registry changes
669 would be valuable to them.
671 Adding this functionality may be tricky for some registries. For
672 example, if a developer cared about DKIM signature tags, they would
673 have to subscribe to
674 which (currently)
675 covers a handful of registries, all related to DKIM. Thus, a change
676 to the DKIM hash algorithms would trigger a message showing that the
677 registry had changed, even though the DKIM signature tags registry
678 had not.
680 A.3. Tracking Changes in the Liason Statement Directory
682 Users might want to know when a new liaison statement is sent by the
683 IETF, or when one is received by the IETF.
685 A.4. Tracking Changes in Documents Outside the IETF Sphere
687 Users might want to track documents that relate to IETF activities
688 but are produced by other standards development organizations (SDOs)
689 such as the W3C, the IEEE, the Unicode Consortium, the ITU, and
690 others. In order for the tracker to track these documents, it would
691 need to poll occasionally and possibly scrape listings from HTML.
693 A.5. Tracking Additions to the IPR Statement Repository
695 Users might want to know when a new IPR statement is submitted.
697 Appendix B. Ideas that Might Be Implemented Later
699 The following are ideas for the new tool that are not currently being
700 considered for the first round of development, but are being
701 documented for possible future use. Items here might move between
702 this list and the list of requirements that are expected to be in the
703 first round.
705 o The Datatracker could list all of the publicly-readable lists (or
706 certainly at least the ones associated with IETF activities), and
707 have links from WG pages in Datatracker to the publicly-readable
708 lists maintained by the WG chairs.
710 o Earlier versions of this I-D had a requirement that lists needed
711 to be able to include other lists. While this may still be
712 desired, it was decided that implementing this in a safe and
713 understandable way would be too difficult. In particular, there
714 was a concern about detecting and handling loops. Later versions
715 of the Datatracker might include this feature.
717 o In public lists, it might be useful for someone to be able to
718 understand why particular I-Ds and/or groups are added. Allowing
719 the user who put together the list to add a comment field would
720 help someone else see the motivation.
722 o The Datatracker might cull lists if it seems that storing them on
723 the Datatracker is taking too many resources. The Datatracker can
724 periodically send mail to the user reminding them to delete lists
725 that are no longer needed.
727 o The normal Datatracker display could have a button to add a
728 particular I-D to the user's personal list.
730 o Allow each user to determine what "significant change in status"
731 is for the list they create. This could be done by a series of
732 check boxes for every possible status change.
734 o A list creator can add a list-level comment about who might be
735 interested in following the list.
737 o If the agendas for an upcoming meeting are scraped for I-D names,
738 it would be possible to add an attribute to an I-D that lists that
739 WG agenda(s) on which it appears.
741 o In the section on "Adding groups of I-Ds to a list by attribute",
742 add an attribute for "all I-Ds that are referenced by any I-D in a
743 particular list".
745 o Make it possible to add all I-Ds that have a certain section to a
746 list (non-trivial IANA considerations, ASN.1 modules in
747 appendices, MIBs, ABNF, XML modules, ...).
749 o Even though Atom feeds have been around for years, they are new to
750 many Internet users, and even experienced users only know how to
751 use them in limited ways. The Datatracker should have at least a
752 few paragraphs explaining how the Atom feeds that it provides can
753 be used in different tools such as dedicated feed readers, online
754 feed-display services, and so on.
756 Author's Address
758 Paul Hoffman
759 VPN Consortium
761 Email: paul.hoffman@vpnc.org