| Network Working Group | O. Kolkman (Ed.) |
| Internet-Draft | J.M. Halpern (Ed.) |
| Obsoletes: 5620 (if approved) | Ericsson |
| Intended status: Informational | IAB |
| Expires: September 11, 2012 | March 12, 2012 |
RFC Editor Model (Version 2)
draft-iab-rfc-editor-model-v2-04
The RFC Editor performs a number of functions that may be carried out by various people or entities. The RFC Editor model described in this document divides the responsibilities for the RFC Series into three functions: The RFC Series Editor, the RFC Production Center, and the RFC Publisher. The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) oversight by way of delegation to the RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC) is described, as is the relationship between the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) and the RSOC. This document reflects the experience gained with RFC Editor Model version 1, documented in [RFC5620] and obsoletes that document.
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 http://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 September 11, 2012.
Copyright (c) 2012 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 (http://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.
The IAB, on behalf of the Internet technical community, is concerned with ensuring the continuity of the RFC Series, orderly RFC Editor succession, maintaining RFC quality, and RFC document accessibility. The IAB is also sensitive to the concerns of the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) about providing the necessary services in a cost effective and efficient manner.
The RFC series is described in [RFC4844]. Its Section 3.1 defines "RFC Editor":
Originally, there was a single person acting as editor of the RFC
Series (the RFC Editor). The task has grown, and the work now
requires the organized activity of several experts, so there are
RFC Editors, or an RFC Editor organization. In time, there may be
multiple organizations working together to undertake the work
required by the RFC Series. For simplicity's sake, and without
attempting to predict how the role might be subdivided among them,
this document refers to this collection of experts and
organizations as the "RFC Editor".
The RFC Editor is an expert technical editor and series editor,
acting to support the mission of the RFC Series. As such, the RFC
Editor is the implementer handling the editorial management of the
RFC Series, in accordance with the defined processes. In addition,
the RFC Editor is expected to be the expert and prime mover in
discussions about policies for editing, publishing, and archiving
RFCs.
RFC 4844 does not explore the internal organization of the RFC Editor. However, RFC 4844 envisions changes in the RFC Editor organizational structure. There have been several iterations on efforts to improve and clarify this structure. These have been led by the IAB, in consultation with the community and many leadership bodies within the community. This first resulted in the publication of [RFC5620], and then in further discussions leading to this document. Some of the details on this evolution can be found below. In undertaking this evolution, the IAB considered changes that increase flexibility and operational support options, provide for the orderly succession of the RFC Editor, and ensure the continuity of the RFC series, while maintaining RFC quality, maintaining timely processing, ensuring document accessibility, reducing costs, and increasing cost transparency. The model set forth below describes the internal organization of the RFC Editor, while remaining consistent with RFC 4844.
Note that RFC 4844 uses the term "RFC Editor function" or "RFC Editor" as the collective set of responsibilities for which this memo provides a model for internal organization. This memo defines the term "RFC Series Editor" or "Series Editor" for one of the organizational components.
The contemporary RFC Editor model [RFC5620] was first approved in October 1, 2008 and our understanding of the model has evolved with our experience since then. During the implementation of version 1 of the model [RFC5620] it was quickly realized that the role of the RSE and the oversight responsibilities needed to be structured differently. In order to gain experience with 'running code' a transitional RFC Series Editor was hired who analyzed the managerial environment and provided recommendations. This was followed by the appointment of an acting RFC Series Editor, who ably managed the series while work was undertaken to select and hire a permanent RSE. This version of the model is based on the recommendations of both temporary RFC Series Editors and the extensive discussion in the IETF community, on the rfc-interest list and within the IAB. A such, this document obsoletes [RFC5620].
The document, and the resulting structures, will be modified as needed through normal procedures. The RSE, and the IAB, through the RFC Oversight Committee (see Section 3.1), will continue to monitor discussions within the community about potential adjustments to the RFC Editor model and recognizes that the process described in this document may need to be adjusted to align with any changes that result from such discussions, hence the version number in the title.
The IAB and IAOC maintain their chartered responsibility as defined in [RFC2850] and [RFC4071].
The RFC Editor model divides the responsibilities for the RFC Series into the following components:
The structure and relationship of the components of the RFC Series Production and Process is schematically represented by the figure below. The picture does not depict oversight and escalation relations. It does include the streams and their managers (which are not part of the RFC Series Editor nor the production or publication facilities) in order to more fully show the context in which the RFC Series Editor operates.
+-------------+
| |
+--------------+ IAB <------------+
| | | |
| |=============| |
| | | |
| | RSOC <------------+
| | | |
| +-------+-----+ +-----+-----+
| | | |
| +...........|.........+ | Community |
| . | . | at |
| . +-------V-----+ . | Large |
| . | | . | |
| . | RFC | . +-----+-----+
| . | Series | . |
| . | Editor <------------+
| . | | .
| . +-+---------+-+ .
| . | | .
+-------------+ +-----V-------+ . +--V--+ +--V--+ . +-----+
| | | | . | | | | . | |
| Independent | | Independent | . | RFC | | | . | E |
| Authors +--> Submission +-----> | | | . | n |
| | | Editor | . | P | | | . | d |
| | | | . | r | | RFC | . | |
+-------------+ +-------------+ . | o | | | . | U |
+-------------+ +-------------+ . | d | | P | . | s |
| | | | . | u | | u | . | e |
| IAB +--> IAB +-----> c | | b | . | r |
| | | | . | t | | l | . | s |
+-------------+ +-------------+ . | i +---> i +--------> |
+-------------+ +-------------+ . | o | | s | . | & |
| | | | . | n | | h | . | |
| IRTF +--> IRSG +---->| | | e | . | R |
| | | | . | C | | r | . | e |
+-------------+ +-------------+ . | e | | | . | a |
+-------------+ +-------------+ . | n | | | . | d |
| | | | . | t | | | . | e |
| IETF +--> IESG +-----> e | | | . | r |
| | | | . | r | | | . | s |
+-------------+ +-------------+ . +-----+ +-----+ . +-----+
. .
+..... RFC Editor ....+
Structure of RFC Series production and process.
In this model documents are produced and approved through multiple document streams. The stream manager for each stream is responsible for the content of that stream. The four streams that now exist are described in [RFC4844]. The RFC Editor function is responsible for the packaging and distribution of the documents. As such, documents from these streams are edited and processed by the Production Center and published by the Publisher. The RFC Series Editor will exercise strategic leadership and management over the activities of the RFC Publisher and the RFC Production Center (both of which can be seen as back office functions) and will be the entity that:
These responsibilities are defined below, although the specific work items under them are a matter for the actual employment contract and its Statement of Work.
The IAB and IAOC maintain their chartered responsibility as defined in [RFC2850] and [RFC4071]. More details on the oversight by the IAB via the RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC) can be found in Section 3.1. For example, the RSE does not have the direct authority to hire or fire RFC Editor contractors or personnel.
The RFC Series Editor is the individual with overall responsibility for the quality, continuity, and evolution of the RFC Series.
The RSE is appointed by the IAB, but formally hired by the IAOC. The IAB delegates the direct oversight over the RSE to the RSOC, which it appoints.
The RSE is expected to cooperate closely with the IAOC and the stream managers.
With respect to the Publication and Production functions, the RSE provides input to the IASA budget, statements of work, and manages vendor selection processes. The RSE performs annual reviews of the Production and Publication function which are then provided to the RSOC the IASA, and the community. Normally private financial details would not be included in a public version unless the IAOC concludes it is necessary to make such information public.
The RSE is responsible for the performance of the Production Center and Publisher. The RSE is responsible for issues that go beyond the production or publication functions, such as cross-stream coordination of priorities. Issues that require changes to the budget or contracts shall be brought to the attention of the IAD by the RSE.
The RSE is also responsible for creating documentation and structures that will allow for continuity of the RFC Series' in the face of changes in contracts and personnel.
Vendor selection for the Production and Publisher functions is done in cooperation with the streams and under final authority of the IASA. Details on this process can be found in Section 4.1.
The RSE is the primary representative of the RFC Series. This representation is important both internally, relative to the IETF, and externally.
The RSE is the primary point of contact to the IETF on matters relating to the RFC series in general, or policy matters relating to specific documents. Issues of practical details in the processing of specific documents are generally worked directly with the RFC Production Center staff.
This includes providing suitable reports to the community at large; providing email contact for policy questions and inputs; and enabling and participating in suitable on-line forums for discussion of issues related to the RFC Series.
Due to the history and nature of the interaction between the RSE and the IETF, certain principles, described in the following subsections, must be understood and adhered to by the RSE in his or her interactions with the community. These apply to the representation function, as well as to the leadership the RSE provides for Production and Series Development.
The vast majority of Internet technical community work is led, initiated, and done by community volunteers, including oversight, policy-making, and direct production of, for example, many software tools. The Series Editor while not a volunteer is dependent upon these volunteer participants. Also, the spirit of the community is heavily focused on and draws from these volunteers. As such, the Series Editor needs to support the vitality and effectiveness of volunteer participation.
All decisions are to be made in the overall interest of the broader Internet community. The RSE is responsible for identifying materially concerned interest groups within the Internet community and reach out to them. Those interest groups include at least the IETF community, the IRTF community, the network research community, and the network operations community. Other interest groups might also be materially interested.
The RSE must consult with the community on policy issues. The RSE works with the community to achieve policy that meets the overall quality, continuity, and evolution goals the RSE is charged with meeting. As described below in Section 3.1 the RSE reports the results of such interactions, to the RSOC, including a description of the outreach efforts and the specific recommendations on policy. This enables the RSOC to provide the oversight the IAB is required to apply, as well as to confirm that the Internet community has been properly consulted and considered in making policy.
From time to time, individuals or organizations external to the IETF need a contact person to talk to about the RFC Series. The RSE or the RSE's designate serve this role.
Over time, the RSE should determine what if any means should be employed to increase end-user awareness of the series, to reinforce the stature of the Series, and will provide the contact point for outside parties seeking information on the Series or the Editor.
Closely related to providing strategic leadership and management to the RFC Production and Publication functions is the need to develop and improve those functions. The RSE is responsible for ensuring that such ongoing development takes place.
This effort must include the dimensions of document quality, timeliness of production, and accessibility of results. It must also specifically take into account issues raised by the IETF community, including all the RFC Streams.
In order to develop the RFC Publication series the RSE is expected to develop a relationships with the Internet technical community. The Editor is expected to engage with the Internet technical community in a process of articulating and refining a vision for the Series and its continuous evolution. The RSE is expected to also engage with other users of the RFC series, in particular with the consumers of these documents such as those people who use them to specify products, write code, test behaviors, or other related activities.
Concretely:
For this type of responsibility the RSE cooperates closely with the community and under oversight of the RSOC and thus ultimately under oversight of the IAB.
The job is expected initially to take on average half of an FTE (approx 20 hrs per week), with the workload per week near full time during IETF weeks, well over 20 hours per week in the first few months of the engagement, and higher during special projects.
The RFC Series Editor is a senior technology professional. The following qualifications are desired:
The RSE is expected to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest or judgment in performing these roles. As such, the RSE is barred from having any ownership, advisory, or other relationship to the vendors executing the Publication or Production functions except as specified elsewhere in this document. If necessary, an exception can be made after public disclosure of those relationships and with the explicit permission of the IAB and IAOC.
RFC Production is performed by a paid contractor, and the contractor responsibilities include:
All these activities will be done under the general direction, but not day to day management, of the RSE and need some level of coordination with various submission streams and the RSE.
The RFC Production Center contractor is to be selected through an IASA RFP process as described in Section 4.1.
The RFC Publisher responsibilities include:
All these activities will be done under the general direction, but not day to day management, of the RSE and need some level of coordination with various submission streams and the RSE.
The RFC Publisher contractor is to be selected through an IASA RFP process as described in Section 4.1.
The IAB is responsible for oversight over the RFC Series and acts as a body for final conflict resolution, including the process described in Section 4.3.
In order to provide continuity over periods longer than the nomcom appointment cycle and assure that oversight includes suitable subject matter expertise, the IAB will establish a group that implements oversight for the IAB, the RFC Series Oversight Committee (RSOC).
The RSOC will act with authority delegated from the IAB: In general it will be the RSOC that will approve consensus policy and vision documents as developed by the RSE in collaboration with the community. While it is expected that the IAB will exercise due diligence in its supervision of the RSOC, the RSOC should be allowed the latitude to do its job without undue interference from the IAB. Therefore, it is expected that the IAB will accord RSOC reports and recommendations the benefit of the doubt.
For all decisions that affect the RSE individually (e.g. hiring and firing) the RSOC prepares recommendations for the IAB but final decision is the responsibility of the IAB. For instance the RSOC would:
RSOC members are expected to recognize potential conflicts of interest and behave accordingly.
For the actual recruitment and selection of the RSE, RSOC will propose a budget for the search process, and work with IASA to refine that budget and develop remuneration criteria and an employment agreement or contracting plans, as appropriate.
The RSOC will be responsible to ensure that the RFC Series is run in a transparent and accountable manner.
The RSOC shall develop and publish its own rules of order.
The initial RSOC was charged with designing and executing a solicitation, search, and selection process for the first actual (non-transition or "acting") RSE appointment. That process involved iteration on this and related documents and evaluation of various strategies and options. The RSOC was expected to describe the process it ultimately selected to the community and did involve the community in interim considerations when that was likely to be of value. Following completion of the selection process, the RSOC will determine the best way to share information learned and experience gained with the community and to determine how to best preserve that information for future use.
The RSOC will operate under the authority of the IAB, with the IAB retaining final responsibility. The IAB will delegate authority and responsibility to the RSOC as appropriate and as RSOC and RSE relationships evolve. The RSOC will include people who are not current IAB members. Currently, this is aligned with the IAB Program structure. The IAB will designate the membership of the RSOC with the goals of preserving effective stability, keeping it small enough to be effective, but large enough to provide general Internet Community expertise, specific IETF expertise, Publication expertise, and stream expertise. Members serve at the pleasure of the IAB and are expected to bring a balance between short and long term perspective. Specific input about, and recommendations of, members will be sought from the streams, the IASA, and the RSE.
In addition to the members from outside of the IAB appointed to the RSOC, IAB members may participate as full members of the RSOC. Under most circumstances, there will be a specific individual IAB member appointed by the IAB as the program lead, who will be a full member of the RSOC. This member's role is distinct from any RSOC internal organizational roles, such as the RSOC choosing to appoint a chair from among its members. Other IAB members may choose to be full members of the RSOC, with the consent of the IAB. This consent is primarily concerned with avoiding overpopulating the RSOC and providing it with relatively stable membership, which will work best if it is not too large a committee.
The IAOC will appoint an individual to serve as its Liaison to the RSOC. The RSE and the IAOC Liaison will serve as non-voting ex-officio members of the RSOC. Either or both can be excluded from its discussions if necessary.
The exact implementation of the administrative and contractual activities described here are a responsibility of the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC, [RFC4071]) in cooperation with the RFC Series Editor. The authority structure is described in Figure 2 below.
+----------------+ +----------------+
| | | |
| IAB | | IAOC |
| | | |
+==========+-----+ +-+--------------+
| | .
| RSOC | .
| | .
+----+-----+ .
| .
| .
| ...................
| . .
+--------V---V----+ .
| | .
| RFC | .
| Series | .
| Editor | .
| | .
+--------+--------+ .
| .
| .................
| . .
+--+----------------+ .
| . | .
| . | .
+---V-----V--+ +--V----V---+
| RFC | | RFC |
| Production | | Publisher |
| Center | | |
+------------+ +-----------+
Authority Structure of RFC Series
Legend:
------- IAB RFC Series Oversight
....... IAOC Contract/Budget Oversight
As stated earlier, vendor selection is done in cooperation with the streams and under the final authority of the IAOC.
The RSE owns and develops the work definition (the SOW) and participates in the IASA Vendor selection process. The work definition is created within the IASA budget and takes into account the stream managers and community input.
The process to select and contract for an RFC Production Center, RFC Publisher, and other RFC-related services, is as follows:
The expenses discussed in this document are not new expenses. They have been and remain part of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA, [RFC4071]) budget.
The RFC Series portion of the IASA Budget shall include entries for the RSOC, RSE, RFC Production Center, and the RFC Publisher. The IASA Budget shall also include entries for the streams, including the independent stream.
The IAOC has the responsibility to approve the total RFC Editor budget (and the authority to deny it.) The RSE must work within the IAOC budgetary process.
The RSE is responsible for managing the RFC Editor to operate within those budgets. If product needs change, the RSE is responsible for working with the Production Center, and where appropriate, other RFC Editor component institutions, relevant Streams, and/or the RSOC to determine what the correct response should be. If they agree that a budgetary change is needed, that needs to be taken to the IAD and the IAOC.
The RFC Series Editor, and the RFC Production and Publication facilities, work with the various streams to produce RFCs. Disagreements may arise between these entities during the execution of the RFC Editor operations. In particular, different streams may disagree with each other, or disagree with the RFC Editor function. Potentially, even the RSOC or the IAOC could find themselves in disagreement with some aspect of the RFC Editor operations. Note that disagreements between an author and the production facility are not cross-entity issues, and are to be resolved by the RSE, in accordance with the rest of this document.
If such cross-entity disagreements arise, the community would generally hope that they can be resolved politely and directly. However, this is not always possible. At that point, any relevant party would first formally request a review and reconsideration of the decision. If the party still disagrees after the reconsideration, that party may ask the RSE to decide or, especially if the RSE is involved, the party may ask the IAB Chair (for a technical or procedural matter) to mediate or appoint a mediator to aid in the discussions, although he or she not is obligated to do so. All parties should work informally and in good faith to reach a mutually agreeable conclusion. As noted below, any such issues which involve contractual matters must be brought to the addition of the IAOC. If the IAB Chair is asked to assist in resolving the matter, the Chair may ask for advice or seek assistance from anyone the Chair deems helpful. The chair may also alert any appropriate individuals or organizations to the existence of the issue.
If such a conclusion is not possible through those less formal processes, then the matter must be registered with the RFC Series Oversight Committee. The RSOC may choose to offer advice to the RSE or more general advice to the parties involved and may ask the RSE to defer a decision until it formulates its advice. However, if a timely decision cannot be reached through discussion, mediation, and mutual agreement, the Series Editor is expected to make whatever decisions are needed to ensure the smooth functioning of the RFC Editor function; those decisions are final.
The RSE may make final decisions unilaterally only to assure the functioning of the process and evaluation of whether current policies are appropriately implemented in the decision or need adjustment. In particular, it should be noted that final decisions about the technical content of individual documents are the exclusive responsibility of the stream approvers for those documents, as shown in the illustration in Figure 2.
If informal agreements cannot be reached, then formal RSOC review and decision making may be required. If so, the the RSE must identify the issues involved to the community, so that the community is aware of the situation. The RSE will the report the issue to the RSOC for formal resolution by the RSOC with confirmation by the IAB in its oversight capacity.
IAB and community discussion of any patterns of disputes are expected to inform future changes to Series policies including possible updates to this document.
If a disagreement or decision has immediate or future contractual consequences it falls under BCP 101 and IASA, and thus the Series Editor must identify the issue and provide his or her advice to the IAOC and, if the RSOC has provided advice, forward that advice as well. The IAOC must notify the RSOC and IAB regarding the action it concludes is required to resolve the issue based on it's applicable procedures and provisions in the relevant contracts.
This document defines several functions within the overall RFC Editor structure, and it places the responsibility for coordination of registry value assignments with the RFC Production Center. The IAOC will facilitate the establishment of the relationship between the RFC Production Center and IANA.
This document does not create a new registry nor does it register any values in existing registries, and no IANA action is required.
The same security considerations as those in RFC 4844 apply. The processes for the publication of documents must prevent the introduction of unapproved changes. Since the RFC Editor maintains the index of publications, sufficient security must be in place to prevent these published documents from being changed by external parties. The archive of RFC documents, any source documents needed to recreate the RFC documents, and any associated original documents (such as lists of errata, tools, and, for some early items, originals that are not machine-readable) need to be secured against any kind of data storage failure.
The IAOC should take these security considerations into account during the implementation and enforcement of the RFC Editor model contracts.
The RFC Editor model was conceived and discussed in hallways and on mail lists. The first iteration of the text on which this document is based was first drafted by Leslie Daigle, Russ Housley, and Ray Pelletier. In addition to the members of the IAOC and IAB in conjunction with those roles, major and minor contributions were made by (in alphabetical order): Bob Braden, Brian Carpenter, Sandy Ginoza, Alice Hagens, Joel M. Halpern, Alfred Hoenes, Paul Hoffman, John Klensin, Subramanian Moonesamy, and Jim Schaad.
The IAOC members at the time this RFC Editor model was approved were (in alphabetical order): Bernard Aboba (ex officio), Eric Burger, Dave Crocker, Marshall Eubanks, Bob Hinden, Russ Housley (ex officio), Ole Jacobsen, Ray Pelletier (non-voting), and Lynn St.Amour (ex officio).
The IAB members at the time the initial RFC Editor model was approved were (in alphabetical order): Loa Andersson, Gonzalo Camarillo, Stuart Cheshire, Russ Housley, Olaf Kolkman, Gregory Lebovitz, Barry Leiba, Kurtis Lindqvist, Andrew Malis, Danny McPherson, David Oran, Dave Thaler, and Lixia Zhang. In addition, the IAB included two ex-officio members: Dow Street, who was serving as the IAB Executive Director, and Aaron Falk, who was serving as the IRTF Chair.
The IAB members at the time the this RFC was approved were (in alphabetical order): Bernard Aboba, Ross Callon, Alissa Cooper, Spencer Dawkins, Joel Halpern, Russ Housley, David Kessens, Olaf Kolkman, Danny McPherson, Jon Peterson, Andrei Robachevsky, Dave Thaler, and Hannes Tschofenig. In addition, the IAB included at the time of approval two ex-officio members: Mary Barnes who was serving as the IAB Executive Director, and Lars Eggert, who was serving as the IRTF Chair.
| [RFC4844] | Daigle, L., Internet Architecture Board, "The RFC Series and RFC Editor", RFC 4844, July 2007. |
| [RFC4071] | Austein, R. and B. Wijnen, "Structure of the IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA)", BCP 101, RFC 4071, April 2005. |
| [RFC2850] | Internet Architecture Board and B. Carpenter, "Charter of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB)", BCP 39, RFC 2850, May 2000. |
| [RFC5620] | Kolkman, O., IAB, "RFC Editor Model (Version 1)", RFC 5620, August 2009. |