| Network Working Group | C. Huitema |
| Internet-Draft | Private Octopus Inc. |
| Intended status: Informational | July 31, 2019 |
| Expires: February 1, 2020 |
RFC Evaluation Project - First Step
draft-huitema-rfc-eval-project-00
This document presents a first attempt at evaluating the production of the IETF. We analyze a set of randomly chosen RFC approved in 2018, looking for history and delays, and using Google Scholar as a proxy for the RFC popularity. The results are interesting, and inform further evaluation efforts.
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As stated on the organization's web site, "The IETF is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet." In this memo, we start exploring how the IETF could possibly be evaluated, and we do so by attempting to evaluate the RFC production process.
The IETF data tracker provides information about RFC and drafts, from which we can infer statistics about the production system. We can measure how long it takes to drive a proposition from initial draft to final publication, and how these delays can be split between Working Group discussions, IETF reviews, IESG assessment, RFC Editor delays and final reviews by the authors.
Just measuring production delays may be misleading. The IETF produces standard proposals and informative memos that get published in the RFC series, but that is not its only purpose. Two other purposes would be the organization of fruitful discussions between members of the technical community, and the filtering of ill-thought proposals so they are not endorsed in IETF publications.
To try assess this other purposes, we have to find ways to measure the impact of the documents that were published. If the communication between participants was efficient, the documents should be easily accepted by the community. If bad ideas were filtered, the specifications should lead to deployed product and services with good feedback.
A potential failure mode of the IETF is to do too much filtering. After all, classifying a proposal as ill-thought or potentially harmful is subjective. A comprehensive analysis would look at the fate of proposals that were not accepted by the IETF but got developed in other ways and became eventually successful. We will not try to assess that in this memo, but further studies migh consider the issue.
In this exploration, we want to evaluate not just the mechanics of the RFC production, but also the quality and impact of the results. This evaluation of quality and impact is subjective. We start with two ideas:
1- Use Google Scholar to assess the citation counts of published documents
2- Ask the RFC authors whether the specifications resulted in the deployment of products or services
When accessing Google Scholar, we search for quoted strings of the form "RFC xxxx". This is an arbitrary choice, we could for example have chosen to search for "RFCxxx" or a combination of the two forms. We retained the simpler alternative, because we don't believe that picking one or the other would introduce a significant bias.
Basic production mechanisms could be evaluated by processing data from the IETF tracker, but subjective data requires manual assessment of results, which can be time consuming. Google Scholar also requires manual access because the site does not offer an open API. Since our resources are limited, we will only perform this analysis for a small sample of RFC, selected at random from the list of RFC approved in 2018. Specifically, we will pick 10 RFC at random between:
In order to avoid injecting personal bias in the random selecton, we use a random selection process similar to the Nomination Committee selection process defined in [RFC3797]. The process is seeded with the text string "vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas", and the results are:
Picking 20 numbers between 8307 and 8511, using MD5(vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas) Rank 1: 8411 -- md5=daba041224a879199b698748808f917d Rank 2: 8456 -- md5=f5570484d91ada6a672edbdca61d808c Rank 3: 8446 -- md5=8340e918bb8faf69d197f79c9a58d7b8 Rank 4: 8355 -- md5=19474df74efd9917cf3fe8acce2ac374 Rank 5: 8441 -- md5=5acce2b730f3c24a4a91a5fc1921d1cd Rank 6: 8324 -- md5=411c11a1cf4c292f83458865599c6921 Rank 7: 8377 -- md5=ac16a89192c0f0727febd35aacbc1f24 Rank 8: 8498 -- md5=bba44f2ba1ab240a1265a82ab71f7e02 Rank 9: 8479 -- md5=1653606b0af95d529a473a8f85ffaea4 Rank 10: 8453 -- md5=0cbfe105667c5a83b027dcfa85062f98 Rank 11: 8429 -- md5=fa51d7738562d990926a0d199fb060b8 Rank 12: 8312 -- md5=96d061523b1a57343356ae7a1e498ca5 Rank 13: 8492 -- md5=1b72b746eb05f79af40ed2bd3faccbe8 Rank 14: 8378 -- md5=645833b936d36cdcc797256518d7c483 Rank 15: 8361 -- md5=2064622c868e410beb0d9c18d0cb522c Rank 16: 8472 -- md5=ca8a823072a21df011d0ea8b96a6aa47 Rank 17: 8471 -- md5=01b293a7dd0793e6f3297f2a973cd7e3 Rank 18: 8466 -- md5=8e411babe271557fe83bcdececc1643f Rank 19: 8362 -- md5=8a1ba3efd82856a12b2b35fc5237e1b7 Rank 20: 8468 -- md5=57ae50ee0e1e0708d356d96d116dbfe1
When evaluating delays and impact, we will compare the year 2018 to 2008 and 1998, 10 and 20 years ago. To drive this comparison, we pick 20 RFC at random among those published in 2008, and another 20 among those published in 1998. We use the same nomcom-like methodology.
For 2008, we picking random RFC numbers between RFC 5134 (January 2008) and RFC 5405 (December 2008), using the sentence "sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus" as a seed. We actually list here 21 numbers, because the random draw place RFC 5315 in 20th position, but that RFC was never issued. We replace it by RFC 5301, which came in 21st position.
Picking 21 numbers between 5134 and 5405, using MD5(sed fugit interea fugit irreparabile tempus) Rank 1: 5227 -- md5=61e5b3cd97fda4e75450e93df0744b6d Rank 2: 5174 -- md5=eed49542394e9d392bcd756ee0f5beed Rank 3: 5172 -- md5=72055ca953d6a8ee0d60a9fca0b8d738 Rank 4: 5354 -- md5=7a00ef15897479d1d15255159f6d8674 Rank 5: 5195 -- md5=54813be7bb56f48a05af8c894799b51f Rank 6: 5236 -- md5=153263bbd8c0349501b75a33f3d66f6c Rank 7: 5348 -- md5=b2d19aa9c1250ef2ddf169045f6e99d7 Rank 8: 5281 -- md5=1c3e61643d46d1da4ba16f0fd7a0aff5 Rank 9: 5186 -- md5=5e87001b830183b1a9427d479a7b0e42 Rank 10: 5326 -- md5=024347839f83d8082549c08bdfa1b43e Rank 11: 5277 -- md5=049a83016ab08552841c59400480cd9d Rank 12: 5373 -- md5=a1ce374aaebdacca2e7d6eeff039d970 Rank 13: 5404 -- md5=fb0d6b582a27ce34175e39de33598556 Rank 14: 5329 -- md5=df043ef1f9d42ba12a03a84434d26ead Rank 15: 5283 -- md5=c40d3f966bc7800d6508d3d82df2371d Rank 16: 5358 -- md5=6fea5bdb26b19e68befd409a09cb335d Rank 17: 5142 -- md5=a8844b73287781762e6548fc6f533508 Rank 18: 5271 -- md5=c19eb02984265ecfe4ca076f2c160cfa Rank 19: 5349 -- md5=33d756f81bf6e40ff344cf6ccaf29f13 Rank 20: 5315 -- md5=d4c30875f88328d72c9f78def2d1dde5 Rank 21: 5301 -- md5=3356419e5560901f0d31309b39d14a80
For 1998 we picking random RFC numbers between RFC 2257 (January 1998) and RFC 2479 (December 1998), using the sentence "pulvis et umbra sumus" as a seed.
Picking 20 numbers between 2257 and 2479, using MD5(pulvis et umbra sumus) Rank 1: 2431 -- md5=6eba444bb3349339fcde7e2be726f0f0 Rank 2: 2381 -- md5=0ce53f69f1a49a49309054af1e9a1d42 Rank 3: 2387 -- md5=53726e77ffeed903d244155d28e30f10 Rank 4: 2348 -- md5=69fcab2d2085555bac9eb0e0f4346523 Rank 5: 2391 -- md5=93358a26a7fce9fa9d61a31cdfdb87b7 Rank 6: 2267 -- md5=652dcab91bd9d5c58f98bdab21b23d80 Rank 7: 2312 -- md5=2505b0bed4af0a00ee663891c6f294d8 Rank 8: 2448 -- md5=6ede4b0dfa935f6ca656a5104b8dc5d0 Rank 9: 2374 -- md5=5312bfe5a9ca45563eb0bf35510d8daa Rank 10: 2398 -- md5=7748a6deec3860898678f992b0b22792 Rank 11: 2283 -- md5=d73ff67466eb42d971a0e134b9284f83 Rank 12: 2382 -- md5=de1f667ac3e4c64aa529872e08823dff Rank 13: 2289 -- md5=37773c2569dc25fdd0ab400ea401d5c7 Rank 14: 2282 -- md5=6b3df671a0a0becf9e42d203b59acd08 Rank 15: 2404 -- md5=e1b6819e5355924f456eb79f93beb8fd Rank 16: 2449 -- md5=4f057df7c226efea773e7013c9c62081 Rank 17: 2317 -- md5=40eee3b536abe4afdb8834a0650c0a04 Rank 18: 2394 -- md5=044f09c53fc9fd1c50fe6bd0c39318e1 Rank 19: 2297 -- md5=78ee7e128436c969c80900fef80c075c Rank 20: 2323 -- md5=ea6935bbda5f6d97756d3df5c3e2fdfb
We review each of the RFC listed in (#methodology) for the year 2018, trying both to answer the known questions and to gather insight for further analyzes. In many cases, the analysis of the data is complemented by direct feedback from the RFC authors.
IANA Registration for the Cryptographic Algorithm Object Identifier Range [RFC8411]:
Informational, 5 pages 4 drafts (personal),first May 8, 2017. Published August 2018. Last call announced 2017/10/09 IESG evaluation starts 2017/12/28 Approved 2018/02/26, draft 03 Auth 48 2018/04/20 Auth 48 complete 2018/07/17 Published 2018/08/06 IANA action: create table
The draft underwent minor copy edit before publication.
The long delay in Auth48 is probaby due to clustering with [RFC8410], which entered AUTH 48 on 06/05. The MISSREF tracker code was cleared then.
2 references on Google Scholar.
Benchmarking Methodology for Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Controller Performance [RFC8456]:
Informational, 64 pages 2 personal drafts, 9 WG drafts, first in March 2015 Last call announced 2018-01-19 IESG evaluation starts 2018-02-27 IESG approved 2018-05-25 Auth 48 2018-08-31 Auth 48 complete 2018-10-16 Published 2018-10-30
The draft underwent very extensive copy editing, covering use of articles, turn of phrases, choice of vocabulary. The changes are enough to cause pagination differences. The "diff" tool marks pretty much every page as changed. Some diagrams see change in protocol elements like message names.
According to the author, the experience of producing this draft mirrors a typical one in the Benchmarking Methodologies Working Group (BMWG).There were multiple authors in multiple time zones, which slowed down the AUTH process somewhat, although the Auth48 delay of 46 is only a bit longer than the average draft.
The RFC was part of cluster with [RFC8455].
Google Scholar shows 3 references. BMWG publishes informational RFCs centered around benchmarking, and the methodologies in RFC 8456 have been implemented in benchmarking products.
The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.3 [RFC8446], as the title indicates, defines the new version of the TLS protocol. From the datatracker, we extract the following:
Proposed standard 160 pages 29 WG drafts first April 17, 2014. Last call announced 2018/02/15 IESG evaluation starts 2018/03/02 Approved 2018/03/21, draft 28 Auth 48 2018/06/14 Auth 48 complete 2018/08/10 Published 2018/08/10
The RFC was a major effort in the IETF. Working group members developed and tested several implementations. Researchers analyzed the specifications and performed to formal verification. Deployment tests outlined issues that caused extra work when the specification was almost ready. These complexity largely explains the time spent in the working group.
Comparing the final draft to the published version, we find relatively light copy editing. It includes explaining acronyms on first use, clarifying some definitions standardizing punctiation and capitalization, and spelling out some numbers in text. This generally fall in the category of "style", although some of the clarifications go into message definitions. However, that simple analysis does not explain why the Auth48 phase took almost two months.
According to the author, the main reason was a requirement to have author and AD review each proposed change, down to any single comma. The concern there was that any change in a complex specification might affect a protocol that was extensively reviewed in the working group. The author asked the RFC editors to back away a number of edits that he considered spurious. This took a long time, partly because it was very hard to distinguish the edits that were editorial from those that were typesetting.
The RFC has 123 references in Google Scholar. There are 21 implementations listed in the Wiki of the TLS 1.3 project. It has been deployed on major browsers.
Resiliency Use Cases in Source Packet Routing in Networking (SPRING) Networks [RFC8355] is an informational RFC. It originated from a use case informational draft that was mostly used for the BOF creating the WG, and then to drive initial work/evolutions from the WG.
Informational, 13 pages. 2 personal drafts (personal), first January 31, 2014. 13 WG drafts. Last call announced 2017-04-20 IESG evaluation starts 2017-05-04, draft 09 Approved 2017-12-19, draft 12 Auth 48 2018-03-12 Auth 48 complete 2018-03-27 Published 2018-03-28
According to the author, the delays reflect the relative lack of priority of this work in the WG. One of the authors actually mentions "blockage by a minority of politically-savvy persons." Once the WG was created, other work was higher priority than working on the use case.
Minor set of copy edit, mostly for style.
9 references on Google Scholar. No implementation of the RFC itself, but the technology behind it such as Segment Routing (architecture RFC 8402, TI-LFA draft-ietf-rtgwg-segment-routing-ti-lfa) is widely implemented and deployment is ongoing. Even if this specific RFC was incurred significant delay, the authors think that the technology was implemented and deployed rather quickly.
Bootstrapping WebSockets with HTTP/2 [RFC8441]
Proposed standard, 8 pages. Updates RFC 6455. 3 personal drafts (personal), first 10/15/2017. 8 WG drafts. Last call announced 2018-05-07, draft 05 IESG evaluation starts 2018-05-29, draft 06 Approved 2018-06-07, draft 07 Auth 48 2018-08-13 Auth 48 complete 2018-09-15 Published 2018-09-21 IANA Action: table entries
This RFC defines the support of WebSockets in HTTP/2, which is different from the mechanism defined for HTTP/1.1 in [RFC6455]. The process was relatively straightforward, involving the usual type of discussions, some on details and some on important points.
Comparing final draft and published RFC shows a minor set of copy edit, mostly for style. However, the author recalls a painful process. The RFC includes many charts and graphs that were very difficult to format correctly in the author's production process that involve conversions from markdown to XML, and then from XML to text. The author had to get substantial help from the RFC editor.
No references on Google Scholar. (RFC 6455 had over 1000 results)
There are several implementations, including Firefox and Chrome, making RFC 8441 a very successful standard.
DNS Privacy, Authorization, Special Uses, Encoding, Characters, Matching, and Root Structure: Time for Another Look? [RFC8324]. This is an opinion piece on DNS development, published on the Independent Stream.
Informational, 29 pages. Independent stream. 5 personal drafts (personal), first June 2, 2017. ISE review started 2017-07-10, draft 03 IETF conflict review and IESG review started 2017-10-29 Approved 2017-12-18, draft 04 Auth 48 2018-01-29, draft 05 Auth 48 complete 2018-02-26 Published 2018-02-27
This RFC took only 9 months from first draft to publication, which is the shortest in the 2018 sample set. In part, this is because the text was privately circulated and reviewed before the first draft was published. The nature of the document is another reason for the short delay. It is an opinion piece, and does not require the same type of consensus building and reviews than a protocol specification.
Comparing the final draft and the published version shows only minor copy edit, mostly for style. According to the author, because this is because he knows how to write in RFC Style with the result that his documents often need a minimum of editing. He also makes sure that the document on which the Production Center starts working already has changes discussed and approved during Last Call and IESG review incorporated rather than expecting the Production Center to operate off of notes about changed to be made.
2 references on Google Scholar.
Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL): Multi-Topology [RFC8377]
Proposed standard, 20 pages. Updates RFC 6325, 7177. 3 personal drafts (personal), first September 3, 2013. 7 WG drafts. Last call announced 2018-02-19, draft 05 IESG evaluation starts 2018-03-02, draft 06 Approved 2018-03-12, draft 05 Auth 48 2018-04-20, draft 06 Auth 48 complete 2018-07-31 Published 2018-07-31 IANA Table, table entries
Minor set of copy edit, mostly for style, also clarity.
1 reference on Google Scholar.
A P-Served-User Header Field Parameter for an Originating Call Diversion (CDIV) Session Case in the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [RFC8498].
Informational, 15 pages. 5 personal drafts (personal), first March 21, 2016. 9 WG drafts. Last call announced 2018-10-12, draft 05 IESG evaluation starts 2018-11-28, draft 07 Approved 2018-12-10, draft 08 Auth 48 2019-01-28 Auth 48 complete 2019-02-13 Published 2019-02-15 IANA Action, table rows added.
Copy edit for style, but also clarification of ambiguous sentences.
No references on Google Scholar.
Storing Validation Parameters in PKCS#8 [RFC8479]
Informational, 8 pages. Independent stream. 5 personal drafts (personal), first August 8, 2017. ISE review started 2018-03-29, draft 02 IETF conflict review and IESG review started 2018-03-29 Approved 2018-08-20, draft 03 Auth 48 2018-09-20, draft 04 Auth 48 complete 2018-09-25 Published 2018-09-26
The goal of the draft was to document what the gnutls implementation was using for storing provably generated RSA keys. This is a short RFC that was published relatively quickly, although discussion between the author, the Independent Series Editor and the IESG lasted several months. The IESG actually asked the ISE to not publish this document, because "it extends an IETF protocol in a way that requires IETF review and should therefore not be published without IETF review and IESG approval. The ISE overruled that advice.
Very minor set of copy edit, moving some references from normative to informative.
No reference on Google Scholar.
The author is not aware of other implementations than gnutls relying on this RFC.
Framework for Abstraction and Control of TE Networks (ACTN) [RFC8453]
Informational, 42 pages. 3 personal drafts, first June 15, 2015. 16 WG drafts. Out of WG 2018-01-26, draft 11 Expert review requested, 2018-02-13 Last call announced 2018-04-16, draft 13 IESG evaluation starts 2018-05-16, draft 14 Approved 2018-06-01, draft 15 Auth 48 2018-08-13 Auth 48 complete 2018-08-20 Published 2018-08-20 IANA Action, table rows added.
Minor copy editing.
8 references on Google Scholar.
Deprecate Triple-DES (3DES) and RC4 in Kerberos [RFC8429]
Informational, 42 pages. 6 WG, first 5/1/2017. Last call announced 7/16/2017, draft 03 IESG evaluation starts 8/18/2017, draft 04 Approved 5/25/2018, draft 05 Auth 48 7/24/2018 Auth 48 complete 10/31/2018 Published 10/31/2018 IANA Action, table rows added.
This RFC recommends to deprecate two encryption algorithms that are now considered obsolete and possibly broken. The document was sent back to the WG after the first last call, edited, and then there was a second last call. The delay from first draft to working group last call was relatively short, but thenumber may be misleading. The initial draft was a replacement of a similar draft in the KITTEN working group, which stagnated for some time before the VURDLE working group took up the work. The deprecation of RC4 was somewhat contentious, but the WG had already debated this prior to the production of this draft, and the draft was not delayed by this debate.
Most of the 280 days between IETF LC and IESG approval was because the IESG had to talk about whether this document should obsolete or move to historic RFC 4757, and no one was really actively pushing that discussion for a while.
The 99 days in AUTH48 are mostly because one of the authors was a sitting AD, and those duties ended up taking precedence over reviewing this document.
Minor copy editing, for style.
1 reference on Google Scholar.
The implementation of the draft would be the actual removal of support for 3DES and RC4 in major implementations. This is happening, but very slowly.
CUBIC for Fast Long-Distance Networks [RFC8312]
Informational, 18 pages. 2 personal drafts, first 9/1/2014. 8 WG drafts Last call announced 9/18/2017, draft 06 IESG evaluation starts 2017-11-14 Approved 2017-10-04, draft 07 Auth 48 2018-01-08 Auth 48 complete 2018-02-07 Published 2018-02-07 IANA Action, table rows added.
Minor copy editing, for style.
9 references on Google Scholar.
The TCP congestion control algorithm Cubic was defined first in 2005, was implemented in Linux soon after, and was implemented in major OSes after that. After some debates from 2015 to 2015, the TCPM working group adopted the draft, with a goal of documenting Cubic in the RFc series. According to the authors, this was not a high priority effort, as Cubic was already implemented in multiple OSes and documented in research papers. At some point, only one of the authors was actively working on the draft. Ths may explain why another two years was spent progressing the draft after adoption by the WG.
The RFC publication may or may not have triggered further implementations. On the other hand, several OSes picked up bug fixes from the draft and the RFC.
Secure Password Ciphersuites for Transport Layer Security (TLS) [RFC8492]
Informational, 40 pages. (Independent Stream) 10 personal drafts, first 9/2/2012. 8 WG drafts ISE review started 2017-05-10, draft 01 IETF conflict review and IESG review started 2017-09-04 Approved 2017-10-29, draft 04 Auth 48 10/19/2018, draft 05 Auth 48 complete 2/19/2019 Published 2/21/2019 IANA Action, table rows added.
This RFC has a complex history. The first individual draft was submitted to the TLS working group on September 7, 2012. It progressed there, and was adopted by the WG after 3 revisions. There were then 8 revisions in the TLS WG, until the WG decided to not progress it. The draft was parked in 2013 by the WG chairs after failing to get consensus in WG last call. The AD finally pulled the plug in 2016, and the draft was then resubmitted to the ISE.
At that point, the author was busy and was treating this RFC with a low priority because, in his words, it would not be a "real RFC". There were problems with the draft that only came up late. It was written back before TLS1.3 existed and the author had to add TLS1.3 support onto it late in the process. He also got a very late comment while in AUTH48 that caused some rewrite. Finally, there was some IANA issue with the extension registry where a similar extension was added by someone else. The draft was changed to just use it.
Changes in AUTH48 include added reference to TLS 1.3, copy-editing for style, some added requirements, added paragraphs, and changes in algorithms specification.
2 references on Google Scholar. Only the author implemented the specification.
Signal-Free Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) Multicast [RFC8378] is an experimental RFC, defining how to implement Multicast in the LISP architecture.
Experimental, 21 pages. 5 personal drafts, first 2/28/2014. 10 WG drafts Last call announced 2018-02-13, draft 07 IESG evaluation starts 2018-02-28, draft 08 Approved 2018-03-12, draft 09 Auth 48 2018-04-23 Auth 48 complete 2018-05-02 Published 2018-05-02
Preparing the RFC took more than 4 years. According to the authors, they were not aggressive pushing it and just let the working group process decide to pace it. They also did implementations during that time.
Minor copy editing, for style.
1 reference on Google Scholar. The RFC was implemented by lispers.net and cisco, and was used in doing IPv6 multicast over IPv4 unicast/multicast at the Olympics for NBC in PyeungChang. The plan is to work on a proposedstandard once the experiment concludes.
Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL): Centralized Replication for Active-Active Broadcast, Unknown Unicast, and Multicast (BUM) Traffic [RFC8361]
Proposed Standard, 17 pages. 3 personal drafts, first 11/12/2013. 14 WG drafts Last call announced 2017-11-28, draft 10 IESG evaluation starts 2017-12-18, draft 11 Approved 2018-01-29, draft 13 Auth 48 2018-09-17 Auth 48 complete 4/9/2018 Published 2018-10-08
According to the authors, the long delays in producing this RFC was due to a slow uptake of the technology in the industry.
Minor copy editing, for style.
1 reference on Google Scholar.
There was at least 1 partial implementation.
Transport Layer Security (TLS) Extension for Token Binding Protocol Negotiation [RFC8472]
Proposed Standard, 8 pages. 1 personal drafts, first 5/29/2015. 15 WG drafts Last call announced 2017-11-13, draft 10 IESG evaluation starts 2018-03-19 Approved 2018-07-20, draft 14 Auth 48 2018-09-17 Auth 48 complete 2018-09-25 Published 2018-10-08
This is a pretty simple document, but it took over 3 years from individual draft to RFC. According to the authors,the biggest setbacks occurred at the start: it took a while to find a home for this draft. It was presented in the TLS WG (because it's a TLS extension) and UTA WG (because it has to do with applications using TLS). Then the ADs determined that a new WG was needed, so the authors had to work through the WG creation process, including running a BOF.
Minor copy editing, for style, with the addition of a reference to TLS 1.3.
5 references on Google Scholar.
Perhaps partially due to the delays, some of the implementers lost interest in supporting this RFC.
A YANG Data Model for Layer 2 Virtual Private Network (L2VPN) Service Delivery [RFC8466]
Proposed Standard, 158 pages. 5 personal drafts, first 9/1/2016. 11 WG drafts Last call announced 2018-02-21, draft 07 IESG evaluation starts 2018-03-14, draft 08 Approved 2018-06-25, draft 10 Auth 48 2018-09-17 Auth 48 complete 2018-10-09 Published 2018-10-12
Copy editing for style and clarity, with also corrections to the yang model.
2 references on Google Scholar.
OSPFv3 Link State Advertisement (LSA) Extensibility [RFC8362] is a major extension to the OSPF protocol. It makes OSPFv3 fully extensible.
Proposed Standard, 33 pages. 4 personal drafts, first February 17, 2013. 24 WG drafts Last call announced 2017-12-19, draft 19 IESG evaluation starts 2018-01-18, draft 20 Approved 2018-01-29, draft 23 Auth 48 2018-03-19 Auth 48 complete 2018-03-30 Published 2018-04-03
The specification was first submitted as a personal draft in the IPv6 WG, then moved to the OSPF WG. The long delay of producing this RFC is due to the complexity of the problem, and the need to wait for implementations. It is a very important change to OSPF that makes OSPFv3 fully extensible. Since it was a non-backward compatible change, the developers started out with some very complex migration scenarios but ended up with either legacy or extended OSPFv3 LSAs within an OSPFv3 routing domain. The initial attempts to have a hybrid mode of operation with both legacy and extended LSAs also delayed implementation due to the complexity.
Copy editing for style and clarity.
7 references on Google Scholar. It either was or will be implemented by all the router vendors.
IPv4, IPv6, and IPv4-IPv6 Coexistence: Updates for the IP Performance Metrics (IPPM) Framework [rfc8468].
Informational, 15 pages. 3 personal drafts, first August 6, 2015. 7 WG drafts Last call announced 2018-04-11, draft 04 IESG evaluation starts 2018-05-24, draft 05 Approved 2018-07-10, draft 06 Auth 48 2018-09-13 Auth 48 complete 2018-11-05 Published 2018-11-14
RFC8468 was somehow special in that there was not a technical reason/interest that triggered it, but rather a formal requirement. While writing RFC7312 the IP Performance Metrics working group (IPPM) realized that RFC 2330, the IP Performance Metrics Framework supported IPv4 only and explicitly excluded support for IPv6. Nevertheless, people used the metrics that were defined on top of RFC 2330 (and, therefore, IPv4 only) for IPv6, too. Although the IPPM WG agreed that the work was needed, the interest of IPPM attendees in progressing (and reading/reviewing) the IPv6 draft was limited. Resolving the IPv6 technical part was straight-forward, but subsequently some people asked for a broader scope (topics like header compression, 6lo, etc.) and it took some time to figure out and later on convince people that these topics are out of scope. The group also had to resolve contentious topics, for example how to measure the processing of IPv6 extension headers, which is sometimes non-standard.
The Auth48 delay for this draft was longer than average. According to the authors, the main reasons include:
The differences between the final draft and the publish RFC show copy editing for style and clarity, but do not account for the back and forth between authors and editors mentioned by the authors.
2 references on Google Scholar. In contrast, RFC 2330 has more than 3000 references, including over 70 that are more recent than RFC 8468. The authors believe that many of these references include IPv6 work that should formally reference RFC 8468 in addition to RFC 2330, but do not.
We examine the 20 RFC in the sample, measuring various characteristics such as delay and citation counts, in an attempt to identify patterns in the IETF processes.
We look at the distribution of delays between the submission of the first draft and the publication of the RFC. We break out the total delay in three components:
For submissions to the independent stream, we don't have a working group. We consider instead the progression of the individual draft until the adoption by the ISE as the equivalent of the "working group" period, and the delay from adoption by the ISE until submission to the RFC Editor as the equivalent of the IETF delay. The following table shows the delays for the 20 RFC in the sample:
| RFC | Status | Pages | Overall | WG | IETF | Edit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8411 | Info | 5 | 455 | 154 | 140 | 161 |
| 8456 | Info | 64 | 1107 | 823 | 126 | 158 |
| 8446 | PS | 160 | 1576 | 1400 | 34 | 142 |
| 8355 | Info | 13 | 1517 | 1175 | 243 | 99 |
| 8441 | PS | 8 | 341 | 204 | 31 | 106 |
| 8324 | ISE | 29 | 270 | 38 | 161 | 71 |
| 8377 | PS | 8 | 1792 | 1630 | 21 | 141 |
| 8498 | Info | 15 | 1061 | 935 | 59 | 67 |
| 8479 | ISE | 8 | 414 | 233 | 144 | 37 |
| 8453 | Info | 42 | 1162 | 1036 | 46 | 80 |
| 8429 | BCP | 10 | 548 | 76 | 313 | 159 |
| 8312 | Info | 18 | 1255 | 1113 | 16 | 126 |
| 8492 | ISE | 40 | 2358 | 1706 | 172 | 480 |
| 8378 | Exp | 21 | 1524 | 1446 | 27 | 51 |
| 8361 | PS | 17 | 1612 | 1477 | 62 | 73 |
| 8472 | PS | 8 | 1228 | 899 | 249 | 80 |
| 8466 | PS | 158 | 771 | 538 | 124 | 109 |
| 8362 | PS | 33 | 1871 | 1766 | 41 | 64 |
| 8468 | Info | 15 | 1196 | 979 | 90 | 127 |
| average | 35 | 1161 | 928 | 110 | 123 |
The average delay from first draft to publication is about 3 years, but this varies widely. Excluding the independent stream submissions, the average delay from start to finish is 3 years and 3 months, of which on average 2 years and 8 months are spent getting consensus in the working group.
The longest delay is found for [RFC8492], 6.5 years from start to finish. This is however a very special case, a draft that was prepared for the TLS working group and failed to reach consensus. After that, it was resubmitted to the ISE, and incurred atypical production delays.
On average, we see that 80% of the delay is incurred in WG processing, 10% in IETF review, and 10% for edition and publication. We can compare these delays to those observed 10 years ago and 20 years ago:
| RFC (2008) | Status | Pages | Delay |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5326 | Exp | 54 | 1584 |
| 5348 | PS | 58 | 823 |
| 5281 | Info | 51 | 1308 |
| 5354 | Exp | 23 | 2315 |
| 5227 | PS | 21 | 2434 |
| 5329 | PS | 12 | 1980 |
| 5277 | PS | 35 | 912 |
| 5236 | ISE | 26 | 1947 |
| 5358 | BCP | 7 | 884 |
| 5271 | Info | 22 | 1066 |
| 5195 | PS | 10 | 974 |
| 5283 | PS | 12 | 1096 |
| 5186 | Info | 6 | 2253 |
| 5142 | PS | 13 | 1005 |
| 5373 | PS | 24 | 1249 |
| 5404 | PS | 27 | 214 |
| 5172 | PS | 7 | 305 |
| 5349 | Info | 10 | 1096 |
| 5301 | PS | 6 | 396 |
| 5174 | Info | 8 | 427 |
| RFC (1998) | Status | Pages | Delay |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2289 | PS | 25 | 396 |
| 2267 | Info | 10 | unknown |
| 2317 | BCP | 10 | 485 |
| 2404 | PS | 7 | 488 |
| 2374 | PS | 12 | 289 |
| 2449 | PS | 19 | 273 |
| 2283 | PS | 9 | 153 |
| 2394 | Info | 6 | 365 |
| 2348 | DS | 5 | 699 |
| 2382 | Info | 30 | 396 |
| 2297 | ISE | 109 | 28 |
| 2381 | PS | 43 | 699 |
| 2312 | Info | 20 | 365 |
| 2387 | PS | 10 | 122 |
| 2398 | Info | 15 | 396 |
| 2391 | PS | 10 | 122 |
| 2431 | PS | 10 | 457 |
| 2282 | Info | 14 | 215 |
| 2323 | ISE | 5 | unknown |
| 2448 | ISE | 7 | 92 |
We can compare the median delay, and the delays observed by the fastest and slowest quartiles in the three years:
| Year | Fastest 25% | Median | Slowest 25% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 604 | 1179 | 1522 |
| 2008 | 869 | 1081 | 1675 |
| 1998 | 169 | 365 | 442 |
The IETF takes three to four times more times to produce an RFC in 2018 than it did in 1998, but about the sametime as it did in 1998.
The increased delay does not mean increased work per RFC. The number of RFC published per year remained between 200 and 300 all those years, and the number of participants is not greater now than in 1998. If we estimated the "level of attention" by dividing the number of participants by the number of RFC produced, we would see a number that remains stable. People are probably not working much more on each RFC now than they were 20 years ago, but the same amount of work is stretched over a much longer period.
Part of the exercise is to test whether citation counts provide a useful measure of the popularity of the IETF production. These citation counts vary widely:
| RFC | Status | Scholar |
|---|---|---|
| 8411 | Info | 2 |
| 8456 | Info | 3 |
| 8446 | PS | 123 |
| 8355 | Info | 9 |
| 8441 | PS | 0 |
| 8324 | ISE | 2 |
| 8377 | PS | 1 |
| 8498 | Info | 0 |
| 8479 | ISE | 0 |
| 8453 | Info | 8 |
| 8429 | BCP | 1 |
| 8312 | Info | 9 |
| 8492 | ISE | 2 |
| 8378 | Exp | 1 |
| 8361 | PS | 1 |
| 8472 | PS | 5 |
| 8466 | PS | 2 |
| 8362 | PS | 7 |
| 8468 | Info | 2 |
The results indicate that [RFC8446] is by far the most popular of the 20 RFC in our sample. This is not surprising, since TLS is a key Internet Protocol. Of the other publications, only 4 have 5 to 9 citations, and the others have three or less.
In order to get a baseline, we can look at the number of references for the RFC published in 2008 and 1998. However, we need totake time into account. Documents published a long time ago are expected to have accrued more references. We try to address this by looking at three counts for each document: the overall number of references over the document's lifetime, the number of references obtained in the year following publication, and the number of references observed since 2018:
| RFC (2008) | Overall | 08 to 09 | >2018 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5326 | 234 | 27 | 26 |
| 5348 | 364 | 34 | 13 |
| 5281 | 182 | 27 | 12 |
| 5354 | 30 | 15 | 7 |
| 5227 | 81 | 9 | 7 |
| 5329 | 57 | 11 | 5 |
| 5277 | 85 | 10 | 5 |
| 5236 | 48 | 8 | 4 |
| 5358 | 45 | 6 | 3 |
| 5271 | 16 | 3 | 3 |
| 5195 | 21 | 12 | 1 |
| 5283 | 26 | 5 | 1 |
| 5186 | 13 | 4 | 1 |
| 5142 | 42 | 14 | 0 |
| 5373 | 16 | 4 | 0 |
| 5404 | 12 | 3 | 0 |
| 5172 | 11 | 2 | 0 |
| 5349 | 11 | 1 | 0 |
| 5301 | 11 | 3 | 0 |
| 5174 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| RFC (1998) | Overall | 98 to 99 | >2018 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2289 | 369 | 13 | 14 |
| 2267 | 607 | 13 | 7 |
| 2317 | 81 | 9 | 6 |
| 2404 | 446 | 20 | 5 |
| 2374 | 280 | 18 | 4 |
| 2449 | 54 | 6 | 3 |
| 2283 | 240 | 25 | 1 |
| 2394 | 69 | 4 | 1 |
| 2348 | 27 | 2 | 1 |
| 2382 | 89 | 30 | 0 |
| 2297 | 68 | 21 | 0 |
| 2381 | 86 | 20 | 0 |
| 2312 | 115 | 18 | 0 |
| 2387 | 292 | 8 | 0 |
| 2398 | 72 | 7 | 0 |
| 2391 | 110 | 5 | 0 |
| 2431 | 25 | 4 | 0 |
| 2282 | 12 | 3 | 0 |
| 2323 | 12 | 1 | 0 |
| 2448 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
We can compare the median number of references, and the numbers of references for the least and most popular quartiles in the three years:
| References | Lower 25% | Median | Higher 25% |
|---|---|---|---|
| RFC (2018) | 1 | 2 | 6 |
| RFC (2008) | 12 | 26 | 57 |
| RFC (2008), until 2009 | 3 | 6 | 12 |
| RFC (2008), 2018 and after | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| RFC (1998) | 47 | 84 | 250 |
| RFC (1998), until 1999 | 4 | 9 | 19 |
| RFC (1998), 2018 and after | 0 | 0 | 3 |
The total numbers shows a decreasing number of references over time. This can be explain to some degree by the passage of time. If we restrict the analysis to the number of references accrued in the year of publishing and the year after that, we still see decreasing numbers. For example, the top quartile of RFC published in 1998 had at least 19 references by the end of 1999, while the top quartile of RFC published in 2008 only had at least 12 references, which is twice the corresponding number for the RFC of 2018.
We also see that the number of references to RFC fades over time. Only the most popular of the RFC produced in 1998 are still referenced in 2019. The overall popularity of the RFC series benefit from a history of publishing relevant documents, but over time the references to historic documents will decrease and the overall popularity will depend on more recent documents.
We need however to be a bit cautious before asserting that publications with a low citation count have limited impact:
We should be able to assess the popularity of specifications with vendors, operators and designers by asking questions about deployed services and products.
The preparation and publication delays include three components:
The breakdown of the publication delays for each RFC is shown in the following table.
| RFC | Status | Pages | RFC edit | Auth 48 | RFC Pub | Edit(total) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8411 | Info | 5 | 53 | 88 | 20 | 161 |
| 8456 | Info | 64 | 98 | 46 | 14 | 158 |
| 8446 | PS | 160 | 85 | 57 | 0 | 142 |
| 8355 | Info | 13 | 83 | 15 | 1 | 99 |
| 8441 | PS | 8 | 67 | 33 | 6 | 106 |
| 8324 | ISE | 29 | 42 | 28 | 1 | 71 |
| 8377 | PS | 8 | 39 | 102 | 0 | 141 |
| 8498 | Info | 15 | 49 | 16 | 2 | 67 |
| 8479 | ISE | 8 | 31 | 5 | 1 | 37 |
| 8453 | Info | 42 | 73 | 7 | 0 | 80 |
| 8429 | BCP | 10 | 60 | 99 | 0 | 159 |
| 8312 | Info | 18 | 96 | 30 | 0 | 126 |
| 8492 | ISE | 40 | 355 | 123 | 2 | 480 |
| 8378 | Exp | 21 | 42 | 9 | 0 | 51 |
| 8361 | PS | 17 | 39 | 31 | 3 | 73 |
| 8472 | PS | 8 | 59 | 8 | 13 | 80 |
| 8466 | PS | 158 | 84 | 22 | 3 | 109 |
| 8362 | PS | 33 | 49 | 11 | 4 | 64 |
| 8468 | Info | 15 | 65 | 53 | 9 | 127 |
| Average | 77.3 | 41.2 | 4.2 | 122.7 | ||
| -8492 | Average | 62 | 37 | 4 | 103 |
On average, the total delay appears to be a bit more than four month, but the average is skewed by the extreme values encountered for [RFC8492]. If we exclude that RFC from the computations, the average delay drops to a just a bit more than 3 months: about 2 months for the preparation, a bit more than one month for the Auth48 phase, and 4 days for the publishing.
Of course, these delays vary from RFC to RFC. To try explain the causes of the delay, we compute the correlation factor between the observed delays and 4 plausible explanation factors:
We find the following values:
| Correlation | RFC edit | Auth 48 | Edit(total) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nb pages | 0.50 | -0.04 | 0.21 |
| Copy-Edit | 0.42 | 0.24 | 0.45 |
| IANA | -0.13 | 0.26 | 0.15 |
None of these indicate strong correlations. The greater number of pages will tend to increase the preparation delay, but it does not appear to impact the Auth48 delay at all. The amount of copy editing also tend to increase the the preparation delay somewhat and the Auth48 delay a little. The presence or absence of IANA action has very ittle correlation with the delays.
We also observe that the Auth48 delay varies much more than the preparation delay, with a standard deviation of 20 days for Auth48 versus 10 days for the preparation delay. In theory, Auth48 is just a final verification: the authors receive the document prepared by the RFC production center, and just have to give their approval, or maybe request a last minute correction. The name indicates that this is expected to last just two days, but in average it lasts more than a month.
We tested a variety of hypotheses that might explain the duration of AUTH48 by computing the correlation coefficients between various properties of the RFC and the production delays. The results are listed in the following table:
| Correlation | RFC production | Auth 48 | RFC Edit(total) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nb pages | 0.5 | -0.04 | 0.21 |
| Copy-Edit | 0.42 | 0.24 | 0.45 |
| IANA action requested | -0.13 | 0.26 | 0.15 |
| Nb drafts | 0.19 | -0.3 | -0.17 |
| Nb Authors | 0.4 | -0.04 | 0.16 |
| WG delay | 0.03 | -0.16 | -0.15 |
The results show that there is no simple answer. The number of pages, the required amount of copy editing and to a very small extent the number of drafts can help predict the production delay, but there is no obvious predictor for the Auth 48 delay. In particular, there is no numerical evidence that the number of authors influences the Auth48 delay, or that authors who have spent a long time working on the document in the working group somehow spend even longer to answer questions during Auth48 – if anything, the numerical results point in the opposite direction.
After asking the authors of the RFC in the sample why the AUTH48 phase took a long time, and we got three explanations:
1- Some RFC have multiple authors in multiple time zones. This slows down the coordination required for approving changes.
2- Some authors found some of the proposed changes unnecessary or undesirable, and asked that they be reversed. This required long exchanges between authors and editors.
3- Some authors were not giving high priority to AUTH48 responses.
As mentioned above, we were not able to verify these hypotheses by looking at the data.
We can assess the amount of copy editing applied to each published RFC by comparing the text of the draft approved for publication and the text of the RFC. We do expect differences in the "boilerplate" and in the IANA section, but we will also see differences due to copy editing. Assessing the amount of copy editing is subjective, and we do it using a scale of 1 to 4:
1- Minor editing
2- Editing for style, such as capitalization, hyphens, that versus which, and expending all acronyms at least one.
3- Editing for clarity in addition to style, such as rewriting ambiguous sentences and clarifying use of internal references. For Yang models, that may include model corrections suggested by the verifier.
4- Extensive editing.
The following table shows that with about half of the RFC required editing for style, and the other half at least some editing for clarity.
| RFC | Status | Copy Edit |
|---|---|---|
| 8411 | Info | 2 |
| 8456 | Info | 4 |
| 8446 | PS | 3 |
| 8355 | Info | 2 |
| 8441 | PS | 2 |
| 8324 | ISE | 2 |
| 8377 | PS | 3 |
| 8498 | Info | 3 |
| 8479 | ISE | 1 |
| 8453 | Info | 2 |
| 8429 | BCP | 2 |
| 8312 | Info | 2 |
| 8492 | ISE | 3 |
| 8378 | Exp | 2 |
| 8361 | PS | 2 |
| 8472 | PS | 2 |
| 8466 | PS | 3 |
| 8362 | PS | 3 |
| 8468 | Info | 3 |
This method of assessment does not take into account the number of changes proposed by the editors and eventually rejected by the authors, since these changes are not present in either the final draft or the published RFC. It might be possible to get an evaluation of these "phantom changes" from the RFC Production Center.
Out of 20 randomly selected RFC, 3 were published through the "independent series". One is an independent opinion, another a description of a non-IETF protocol format, and the third was [RFC8492], which is a special case. Apart from this special case, the publication delays were significantly shorter for the Independent Stream than for the IETF stream. This seems to indicate that the Independent Series is functioning as expected.
The authors of these 3 RFC are regular IETF contributors. This pbservation motivated a secondary analysis of all the RFC published in the "independent" stream in 2018. There are 14 such RFC: 8507, 8494, 8493, 8492, 8483, 8479, 8433, 8409, 8374, 8369, 8367, 8351, 8328 and 8324. (RFC 8367 and 8369 were published on 1 April 2018.) We can ask whether the authors of these RFC are these outsiders, part of a "wider community" or are people who are also contributing to the IETF. The overwhelming response is, "insiders". Pretty much all the authors are or were involved in the IETF, many of them with a prominent track record. There are just 2 exceptions, a single RFC in which only 3 of the 5 authors are well associated with the IETF.
This draft is not really complete. We have obtained feedback from many authors but not all. We should also get a review from the RFC Production Center. We may want to find a better way of looking at citations than simple queries on Google Scholar.
Even with those limitations, the exercise shows some promise, and also shows the interest of doing more studies. For example, one of the plausible questions is whether the IETF impact is increasing or decreasing over time. We could do that by repeating the statistical sampling analysis for previous years, for example 2008 and 1998.
This draft does not specify any protocol.
We might want to analyze whether security issues were discovered after publication of specific standards.
This draft does not require any IANA action.
Peliminary analysis does not indicate that IANA is causing any particular delay in the publication process.
Many thanks to the authors of the selected RFC who were willing to provide feedback on the process: Michael Ackermann, Zafar Ali, Sarah Banks, Bruno Decraene, Lars Eggert, Nalini Elkins, Joachim Fabini, Dino Farinacci, Clarence Filsfils, Sujay Gupta, Dan Harkins, Vinayak Hegde, Benjamin Kaduk, John Klensin, Acee Lindem, Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos, Patrick McManus, Victor Moreno, Al Morton, Andrei Popov, Eric Rescorla, Michiko Short, Bhuvaneswaran Vengainathan, Lao Weiguo, and Li Yizhou.