Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) N. ten Oever
Request for Comments: 9592 University of Amsterdam
Obsoletes: 6722 G. Wood
Category: Informational IETF Administration LLC
ISSN: 2070-1721 June 2024
Retiring the Tao of the IETF
Abstract
This document retires and obsoletes the Tao of the IETF as an IETF-
maintained document. This document also obsoletes RFC 6722, which
describes the publication process of the Tao. Furthermore, this
document describes the rationale for the retirement of the Tao. For
archival purposes, the last version of the Tao is included in the
appendix. Information that new participants need to engage in the
work of the IETF will continue to be provided through the IETF
website in a more timely and accessible manner. This is the way.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are candidates for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9592.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2024 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
(https://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 Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the
Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described
in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Reasons for Retirement
2.1. Infrequent Updates
2.2. Unwieldy Format
2.3. Changing Participation Modes
3. Going Forward
3.1. New Communications Opportunities
4. Conclusion
5. Security Considerations
6. IANA Considerations
7. Informative References
Appendix A. Last Edition of the Tao
Abstract
1 Introduction
1.1 Acronyms and Abbreviations Used in the Tao
2 What is the IETF?
2.1 Humble Beginnings
2.2 The Hierarchy
2.3 IETF Mailing Lists
3 IETF Meetings
3.1 Registration
3.2 Take the Plunge and Stay All Week!
3.3 Newcomer Training
3.4 Dress Code
3.5 Working Group Meetings
3.6 Seeing Spots Before Your Eyes
3.7 Terminal Room
3.8 Meals and Snacks
3.9 Social Event
3.10 Agenda
3.11 EMODIR to the Rescue
3.12 Where Do I Fit In?
3.13 Proceedings
3.14 Other General Things
3.15 Remote Participation
4 Working Groups
4.1 Working Group Chairs
4.2 Getting Things Done in a Working Group
4.3 Working Group Documents
4.4 Preparing for Working Group Meetings
4.5 Working Group Mailing Lists
4.6 Interim Working Group Meetings
5 BOFs and Dispatching
6 RFCs and Internet-Drafts
6.1 The Overall Process
6.2 Common Issues
6.3 Writing an Internet-Draft
6.4 Standards-Track RFCs
6.5 RFCs Other than Standards-Track
7 How to Contribute to the IETF
7.1 What You Can Do
7.2 What Your Company Can Do
8 IETF and the Outside World
8.1 IETF and Other SDOs
8.2 Press Coverage of the IETF
Acknowledgements
Authors' Addresses
1. Introduction
Since its publication as [RFC1391] in 1993, The "Tao of the IETF"
("Tao") has described the inner workings of IETF meetings and Working
Groups, discussed organizations related to the IETF, and introduced
the working processes to new participants. The Tao never was a
formal IETF process document, but rather a community-developed and
maintained informational overview. After the Tao was published as an
RFC for 13 years, it was published as a webpage for over a decade
following the process described in [RFC6722]. However, the Tao did
not keep up with the changes in the processes of the community and
the organization, and thereby ceased to be a reliable source of
information. We gratefully want to acknowledge all the individuals
who contributed to the Tao over the years. The changing nature of
IETF participation, a better understanding of how to most effectively
convey information to new participants, and experience with
publishing the Tao as a webpage all suggest a new approach to
collecting, updating, and communicating the information that new
participants need to engage in the work of the IETF successfully.
This document formally retires and obsoletes the "Tao of the IETF" as
a single standalone document.
2. Reasons for Retirement
In short, the breadth of topics covered in the Tao, the unpredictable
and different schedule for updates to the topics, and the high
overhead for revising and reviewing the content did not match the
needs or preferences of the intended audience of the Tao.
2.1. Infrequent Updates
The Tao was originally published as [RFC1391] in January 1993. In
the following 17 years, four additional versions of the Tao were
published as RFCs:
* [RFC1539] in October 1993,
* [RFC1718] in November 1994,
* [RFC3160] in August 2001, and
* [RFC4677] in September 2006.
In August 2012, [RFC6722] was published to document the process for
publishing the Tao as a webpage so that it could "be updated more
easily." However, in the subsequent 11 years, only four additional
versions were published. The length of the Tao meant that review and
approval of the entire document took considerable effort and time,
leading to very infrequent updates.
2.2. Unwieldy Format
The large, consolidated document format of the Tao made for a heavy
investment by readers, in addition to the difficulty editors faced
keeping pace with the changes required to keep it current. For
example, the emergence of IETF Hackathon popularity with new
participants prompted an update. However, that content was
effectively buried in an already long document.
2.3. Changing Participation Modes
The original Tao aimed to welcome new participants to IETF meetings
as attendance grew rapidly along with the growth of the Internet in
the 1990s. As other avenues for initial participation in the IETF
emerged over the ensuing decades, the main focus of the Tao remained
on in-person meeting participation. For example, remote
participation in IETF meetings has become a much more significant
aspect in the past few years.
3. Going Forward
The content of the Tao has already been integrated into the website
of the IETF, which is the main channel of communication for IETF
newcomers and a general audience. The content is continuously kept
up to date with a variety of media to serve different audiences. The
IETF seeks to ensure that the website continues to address the needs
of our ever-evolving community and potential newcomers.
3.1. New Communications Opportunities
The IETF and its community continuously seek to improve its
communication to newcomers and existing participants alike. Examples
of possible ways of doing this:
* More focused guides, e.g., on IETF Hackathon participation,
starting new work, etc.
* Alternative formats, e.g., multiple shorter documents, on-demand
video, podcasts, etc.
* New channels for communications, e.g., blog posts, improved
Datatracker, Slack, etc.
4. Conclusion
The coverage of a wide range of topics, the unpredictable and
different schedule for updates to the topics, and the high overhead
for revising and reviewing the content mean that the Tao required a
lot of effort to maintain, was commonly out-of-date, and thus did not
serve its intended purpose of informing the community and newcomers.
Therefore, this document is the end of the road for "Tao of the
IETF." The document is now retired. For archival reasons, the last
version of the Tao can be found in Appendix A.
5. Security Considerations
This document has no security considerations.
6. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
7. Informative References
[RFC1391] Malkin, G., "The Tao of the IETF: A Guide for New
Attendees of the Internet Engineering Task Force",
RFC 1391, DOI 10.17487/RFC1391, January 1993,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1391>.
[RFC1539] Malkin, G., "The Tao of IETF - A Guide for New Attendees
of the Internet Engineering Task Force", RFC 1539,
DOI 10.17487/RFC1539, October 1993,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1539>.
[RFC1718] IETF and G. Malkin, "The Tao of IETF - A Guide for New
Attendees of the Internet Engineering Task Force",
RFC 1718, DOI 10.17487/RFC1718, November 1994,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1718>.
[RFC3160] Harris, S., "The Tao of IETF - A Novice's Guide to the
Internet Engineering Task Force", RFC 3160,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3160, August 2001,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3160>.
[RFC4677] Hoffman, P. and S. Harris, "The Tao of IETF - A Novice's
Guide to the Internet Engineering Task Force", RFC 4677,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4677, September 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4677>.
[RFC6722] Hoffman, P., Ed., "Publishing the "Tao of the IETF" as a
Web Page", RFC 6722, DOI 10.17487/RFC6722, August 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6722>.
Appendix A. Last Edition of the Tao
For archival purposes, the last edition of the Tao as published under
the process described in [RFC6722], is included below. Note that
several links to resources external to the Tao do not work at the
time of publication of this RFC. Additionally, minor errors in the
following text have been corrected.
Abstract
This document introduces you to the "ways of the IETF": it will
convey the might and magic of networking people and packets in the
Internet's most prominent standards body. In this document we
describe the inner workings of IETF meetings and Working Groups,
discuss organizations related to the IETF, and introduce the
standards process. This is not a formal IETF process document but an
informal and informational overview.
1 Introduction
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is the largest standard
development organization (SDO) for the Internet. Since its early
years, participation in the IETF has grown phenomenally. In-person
attendance at face-to-face meetings now averages between 1000 and
1500 participants (https://datatracker.ietf.org/stats/meeting/
overview/). At any given meeting, around 200 attendees are
_newcomers_ (defined by the IETF as someone who has attended five or
fewer meetings), and many of those go on to become regular
participants. When the IETF was smaller, it was relatively easy for
a newcomer to adjust. Today, however, a newcomer meets many more new
people -- some previously known only as the authors of documents or
thought-provoking email messages.
Of course, it's true that many IETF participants don't go to the
face-to-face meetings at all -- especially since the COVID-19
pandemic when meetings were completely online for a while. There are
also many participants who solely focus on the mailing lists of
various IETF Working Groups. Since the inner workings of Working
Groups can be hard for newcomers to understand, this document
provides the mundane bits of information that newcomers will need in
order to become active participants. The IETF website also has a lot
of newcomer information (https://www.ietf.org/about/participate/get-
started/) in various formats. In this document we try to cover as
much as possible in one place.
The IETF is always evolving. Although the principles in this
document are expected to remain consistent over time, practical
details may well have changed by the time you read it; for example, a
web-based tool may have replaced an email address for requesting some
sort of action.
Many types of IETF documentation are mentioned here. The IETF
publishes its technical documentation as RFCs, still known by their
historical term _Requests for Comments_. (Sometimes people joke that
it stands for _Request for Compliance_.) STDs are RFCs identified as
"standards", and BCPs are RFCs that represent thoughts on Best
Current Practices in the Internet. Both STDs and BCPs are also RFCs.
For example, BCP 9 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp9) points to a
collection of RFCs that describe the IETF's standardization
processes. See RFCs and Internet-Drafts for more details.
1.1 Acronyms and Abbreviations Used in the Tao
Some of the acronyms and abbreviations from this document are listed
below.
+=======+=====================================================+
| Term | Meaning |
+=======+=====================================================+
| AD | Area Director |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| BCP | Best Current Practice (a type of RFC) |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| BOF | Birds of a Feather |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| IAB | Internet Architecture Board |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| IANA | Internet Assigned Numbers Authority |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| IASA | IETF Administrative Support Activity |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| ICANN | Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| I-D | Internet-Draft |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| IESG | Internet Engineering Steering Group |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| IPR | Intellectual property rights |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| IRSG | Internet Research Steering Group |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| IRTF | Internet Research Task Force |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| ISOC | Internet Society |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| RFC | Request for Comments |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| STD | Standard (a type of RFC) |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
| WG | Working Group |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------+
Table 1
2 What is the IETF?
The IETF has no members and no dues; it is a loosely self-organized
group of people who contribute to the engineering and evolution of
Internet technologies. It is the principal body engaged in the
development of new Internet standard specifications. The IETF is
unusual in that it exists as a collection of meetings (both in-person
and virtual) and online activities (such as email and pull request
discussions), in which individuals voluntarily participate.
The IETF welcomes all interested individuals: IETF participants come
from all over the world and from many different parts of the Internet
industry. The IETF conducts its work solely in English. See Where
do I fit in? for information about the ways that many people fit into
the IETF.
Quoting from RFC 3935: A Mission Statement for the IETF
(https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3935): "the overall goal of the
IETF is to make the Internet work better. Its mission is to produce
high quality, relevant technical and engineering documents that
influence the way people design, use, and manage the Internet in such
a way as to make the Internet work better. These documents include
protocol standards, best current practices, and informational
documents of various kinds."
The ways to do that include the following:
* Identifying and proposing solutions to pressing operational and
technical problems in the Internet.
* Specifying the development or usage of protocols and the near-term
architecture to solve such technical problems for the Internet.
* Making recommendations to the Internet Engineering Steering Group
(IESG) regarding the standardization of protocols and protocol
usage in the Internet.
* Facilitating technology transfer from the Internet Research Task
Force (IRTF) to the wider Internet community.
* Providing a forum for the exchange of information within the
Internet community among vendors, users, researchers, agency
contractors, operators, and network managers.
RFC 3935 further states that the Internet isn't value-neutral, and
neither is the IETF. The IETF wants the Internet to be useful for
communities that share our commitment to openness and fairness. The
IETF embraces technical concepts such as decentralized control, edge-
user empowerment and sharing of resources, because those concepts
resonate with the core values of the IETF community. These concepts
have little to do with the technology that's possible, and much to do
with the technology that the IETF chooses to create.
In many ways, the IETF runs on the beliefs of its participants. One
of the founding beliefs is embodied in an early quote about the IETF
from David Clark: "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We
believe in rough consensus and running code." Another early quote
that has become a commonly-held belief in the IETF comes from Jon
Postel: "Be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you
accept."
There is no membership in the IETF. Anyone may sign up to working
group mailing lists, or register for a meeting and then attend. The
closest thing there is to being an IETF member is being a participant
on the IETF or Working Group mailing lists. This is where the best
information about current IETF activities and focus can be found.
Of course, no organization can be as successful as the IETF is
without having some sort of structure. In the IETF's case, that
structure is provided by other supporting organizations, as described
in RFC 2028: The Organizations Involved in the IETF Standards Process
(https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2028). Please note that RFC 2028
is outdated and being revised.
The IETF web site (https://www.ietf.org) is the best source for
information about upcoming IETF meetings and newcomer materials. The
IETF Datatracker (https://datatracker.ietf.org/) is the best source
for information about Internet-Drafts, RFCs, and Working Groups.
One more thing that is important for newcomers: the IETF in no way
"runs the Internet," despite what some people mistakenly might say.
The IETF makes voluntary standards that are often adopted by Internet
users, network operators, and equipment vendors, and it thus helps
shape the trajectory of the development of the Internet. But in no
way does the IETF control, or even patrol, the Internet. If your
interest in the IETF is because you want to be part of the overseers,
you may be badly disappointed by the IETF. A saying you will
sometimes hear is, "we are not the protocol police."
2.1 Humble Beginnings
The first IETF meeting was held in January 1986 at Linkabit in San
Diego, with 21 attendees. The 4th IETF, held at SRI in Menlo Park in
October 1986, was the first that equipment vendors attended. The
concept of Working Groups was introduced at the 5th IETF meeting at
the NASA Ames Research Center in California in February 1987. The
7th IETF, held at MITRE in McLean, Virginia, in July 1987, was the
first meeting with more than 100 attendees.
After the Internet Society (https://www.internetsociety.org) (ISOC)
was formed in January 1992, the IAB proposed to ISOC that the IAB's
activities should take place under the auspices of the Internet
Society. During INET92 in Kobe, Japan, the ISOC Trustees approved a
new charter for the IAB to reflect the proposed relationship.
The IETF met in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in July 1993. This was
the first IETF meeting held in Europe, and the US/non-US attendee
split was nearly 50/50. The IETF first met in Oceania (in Adelaide,
Australia) in 2000, the first meeting in Asia (in Yokohama, Japan)
was in 2002, and the first meeting in Latin America (in Buenos Aires,
Argentina) was in 2016. So far, the IETF has never met in Africa.
The IETF currently has a "1-1-1" meeting policy where the goal is to
distribute the meetings equally between North America, Europe, and
Asia. This policy is mainly aimed at distributing the travel effort
for the existing IETF participants who physically attend meetings and
for distributing the timezone difficulty for those who participate
remotely. The IETF has also met in Latin America and Oceania, but
these continents are currently not part of the 1-1-1 rotation
schedule. More information on picking the venue and the meeting
policy can be found in RFC 8718: IETF Plenary Meeting Venue Selection
Process (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8718) and RFC 8719: High-
Level Guidance for the Meeting Policy of the IETF (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc8719).
Remote participation in IETF meetings has been growing significantly
in the past few years, thanks in part to the ongoing effort to
improve the tools and processes used to facilitate this mode of
participation.
2.2 The Hierarchy
2.2.1 The Internet Society (ISOC) and the IETF Administration LLC (IETF
LLC)
The Internet Society (ISOC) is an international, non-profit,
membership organization that supports and promotes the development of
the Internet as a global technical infrastructure. The mission of
ISOC is "to promote the open development, evolution, and use of the
Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world." One of
the ways that ISOC does this is through financial support of the
IETF.
The IETF Administration LLC (https://www.ietf.org/about/
administration/) (IETF LLC) is a "disregarded entity" of ISOC, which
means it is treated as a branch or division for tax purposes. The
IETF LLC has no role in the oversight or steering of the standards
process, the appeal chain, the confirming bodies for existing IETF
and IAB appointments, the IRTF, or ISOC's memberships in other
organizations. Rather, the IETF LLC, as overseen by its Board of
Directors, is responsible for staffing and contracts with places like
hotels to host IETF meetings. Most of the day-to-day activities are
delegated to the IETF Executive Director.
Responsibilities of the IETF LLC include:
* Supporting the ongoing operations of the IETF, including meetings
and non-meeting activities.
* Managing the IETF's finances and budget.
* Raising money on behalf of the IETF.
* Establishing and enforcing policies to ensure compliance with
applicable laws, regulations, and rules.
The IETF and ISOC continue to be strongly aligned on key principles.
ISOC initiatives related to the IETF continue to support
participation in, and deployment of, the standards created by the
IETF.
2.2.2 Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG)
The IESG is responsible for technical management of IETF activities
and the Internet standards process. However, the IESG doesn't
exercise much direct leadership, such as the kind you will find in
many other standards organizations. As its name suggests, its role
is to set directions rather than to give orders. The IESG gets WGs
started and finished, ratifies or steers the output from the IETF's
Working Groups (WGs), and makes sure that non-WG I-Ds that are about
to become RFCs are correct.
Check the IESG web pages (https://www.ietf.org/about/groups/iesg) to
find up-to-date information about IESG statements, I-Ds processed,
RFCs published, and documents in Last Call, as well as the monthly
IETF status reports.
The IESG consists of the Area Directors (ADs), who are selected by
the Nominations Committee (NomCom) and are appointed for two years.
The process for choosing the members of the IESG is detailed in BCP
10 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp10).
The current Areas and abbreviations are shown below, and more details
(https://www.ietf.org/topics/areas/) are on the IETF web site.
+======================+========================================+
| Area | Description |
+======================+========================================+
| Applications and | Protocols seen by user programs, such |
| Real-Time Area (art) | as email and the web and delay- |
| | sensitive interpersonal communications |
+----------------------+----------------------------------------+
| General (gen) | IETF process, and catch-all for WGs |
| | that don't fit in other Areas (which |
| | is very few) |
+----------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Internet (int) | Different ways of moving IP packets |
| | and DNS information |
+----------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Operations and | Network management, AAA, and various |
| Management (ops) | operational issues facing the Internet |
+----------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Routing (rtg) | Getting packets to their destinations |
+----------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Security (sec) | Privacy, integrity, authentication, |
| | non-repudiation, confidentiality, and |
| | access control |
+----------------------+----------------------------------------+
| Transport (tsv) | Transport for large volumes of traffic |
| | at potentially high bandwidths |
+----------------------+----------------------------------------+
Table 2
Because the IESG reviews all Internet-Drafts before they become RFCs,
ADs have quite a bit of influence. The ADs for a particular Area are
expected to know more about the combined work of the WGs in that Area
than anyone else. This is because the ADs actively follow the
working groups for which they are responsible and assist working
groups and chairs with charter and milestone reviews. Some people,
therefore, shy away from directly engaging with Area Directors.
Don't -- they can be an important resource and help you find the
person or the answer that you're looking for. They are, however,
often very busy during meetings, and so an email to schedule a
meeting can be useful, or just ask your questions.
The entire IESG reviews each Internet-Draft (I-D or "draft") that is
proposed to become an RFC and should be aware of general trends that
can be gleaned from the collective work products of the IETF. For
IETF produced RFCs, as part of the document reviews, ADs place
ballots that may contain comments on documents. The AD enters a
position that may be _YES_, _NO OBJECTION_, _DISCUSS_, _ABSTAIN_, or
_RECUSE_ as the result of their review. Any AD may record a
_DISCUSS_ ballot position against a draft if they have serious
concerns and would like to discuss these concerns. It is common for
documents to be approved with one or two _YES_ ballots, and the
majority of the remaining IESG balloting _NO OBJECTION_. An IETF
blog post (https://www.ietf.org/blog/handling-iesg-ballot-positions/)
provides advice on how draft authors could handle the various ballot
positions.
Another important job of the IESG is to watch over the output of all
the WGs to help prevent IETF protocols that are at odds with each
other. This is why ADs are supposed to review the I-Ds coming out of
Areas other than their own, and each Area has a _directorate_, a set
of experienced volunteers who review I-Ds with a focus on potential
issues for their area.
The quality of the IETF standards comes both from the review they get
in the Working Groups and the scrutiny that the WG review gets from
the ADs.
2.2.3 Internet Architecture Board (IAB)
The IAB (https://www.iab.org) is responsible for keeping an eye on
the "big picture" of the Internet, and it focuses on long-range
planning and coordination among the various areas of IETF activity.
The IAB stays informed about important long-term issues in the
Internet, and it brings these topics to the attention of people it
thinks should know about them.
IAB members pay special attention to emerging activities in the IETF.
When a new IETF Working Group is proposed, the IAB reviews its
charter for architectural consistency and integrity. Even before the
group is chartered, the IAB members are more than willing to discuss
new ideas with the people proposing them.
The IAB also sponsors and organizes the Internet Research Task Force
(https://www.irtf.org) (IRTF) and convenes invitational workshops
that provide in-depth reviews of specific Internet architectural
issues. Typically, the workshop reports make recommendations to the
IETF community and to the IESG. The IAB keeps the community informed
through blog posts and by publishing RFCs.
The IAB also:
* Approves NomCom's IESG nominations
* Acts as the appeals board for appeals against IESG actions
* Oversees the RFC series policy and procedures
* Acts as an advisory body to ISOC
* Oversees IETF liaisons with other standards bodies
Like the IESG, the IAB members are selected for two-year positions by
the NomCom and are approved by the ISOC Board of Trustees.
2.2.4 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
The core registrar for the IETF's activities is the IANA
(https://www.iana.org). Many Internet protocols require that someone
keep track of protocol items that were added after the protocol came
out. Typical examples of the kinds of registries needed are for TCP
port numbers and MIME types. IANA's work on behalf of the IETF is
overseen by the IAB. There is a joint group
(https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/ietfiana/about/) that advises
IANA. IANA is funded by ICANN (https://www.icann.org).
Even though being a registry may not sound interesting, many IETF
participants will testify to how important IANA has been for the
Internet. Having a stable, long-term repository run by careful and
conservative operators makes it much easier for people to experiment
without worrying about messing things up.
2.2.5 RFC Editor and RFC Production Center (RPC)
The RPC edits, formats, and publishes RFC's. This used to be done by
one person, which is why you will still see the term _RFC Editor_;
IETFers are fond of their history. Also, if you are a document
author, you will most commonly come in contact with people
responsible for editing your draft. Another important role is to
provide one definitive repository (https://www.rfc-editor.org) for
all RFCs.
A common misconception is that all RFCs are the work of the IETF. In
fact, there are four sources of RFCs: the IETF, the IAB, the IRTF,
and Independent streams. It is likely that there will soon be a
fifth source, which will be for documents on the RFC series itself.
Only documents coming directly from the IETF through Working Groups,
or sponsored by ADs, can have IETF consensus and be described as IETF
specifications or standards.
Once an RFC is published, it is never revised. If the specification
it describes changes, the standard will be re-published in another
RFC that "obsoletes" the first. If a technical or editorial error is
found in an RFC, an errata may be filed for review. If accepted, the
errata will be linked to the RFC and may be held for the next
document update.
At the time of this writing, the model for the RFC Editor and the RPC
is being revised under an IAB Program
(https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/rfcefdp/about/). In this
revision, there is a position hired by the IETF LLC known as the RFC
Series Editor, who is advised by a couple of groups. As a newcomer,
and potential author, the details shouldn't matter much to you right
now.
The RPC is contracted by the IETF LLC.
2.2.6 IETF Secretariat
There are a few people who are paid to support the IETF. The IETF
Secretariat provides day-to-day logistical support, which mainly
means coordinating face-to-face meetings and running the IETF
presence on the web, including the IETF web site
(https://www.ietf.org), mailing lists, the repository for Internet-
Drafts, and so on. The Secretariat also provides administrative
assistance to the IESG and others.
The Secretariat is contracted by the IETF LLC.
2.2.7 IETF Trust
The IETF Trust (https://trustee.ietf.org) was set up to hold and
license the intellectual property of the IETF, such as trademarks
(the IETF logo, etc.) and copyrights. The trust is a stable,
legally-identifiable entity. Most participants never interact with
the IETF Trust, beyond seeing it mentioned in RFC boilerplate. This
is a good sign, and indicates that they are quietly doing their job.
2.3 IETF Mailing Lists
The IETF does most of its communication, and all of its official
work, via email.
Anyone who plans to participate in the IETF should join the IETF
announcement mailing list (https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/
ietf-announce). This is where all of the meeting information, RFC
announcements, and IESG Protocol Actions and Last Calls are posted.
This list is strongly moderated, and only the Secretariat and a small
number of IETF leaders can approve messages sent to the announcement
list, although those messages can come from a variety of people.
There is also a general discussion list
(https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf) that is unmoderated.
This means that everyone can express their opinions about issues
affecting the Internet. As an open discussion forum, it sometimes
spins out of control and it helps to be quick on the _DELETE MESSAGE_
button while also being slow to take offense. The mailing list does
have a charter (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp45), however,
which points out that it is not a place for companies or individuals
to solicit or advertise. As of this writing, the charter is being
revised. It is lightly moderated by two people appointed by the IETF
Chair; they used to be called the Sargent At Arms (SAA), and you
might see that term sometimes. There is also a process for banning
persistent offenders from the list, but fortunately this is extremely
rare.
There are also subset lists. The i-d-announce
(https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/i-d-announce) list only posts
when a new Internet-Draft is submitted. It is moderated. The last-
call (https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/last-call) list is not
moderated, and is for discussion of IETF Last Calls (the stage when
the IETF community is given one last chance to comment on a draft
before it is published as an RFC).
Every Working Group has its own mailing list.
Every IETF mailing list is archived. (Unfortunately, the archives
for some lists from many years ago, when the IETF did not have its
own servers, have been lost.)
Even though the IETF mailing lists "represent" the IETF participants
at large, it is important to note that attending an IETF meeting does
not mean you'll be automatically added to any list; you'll have to
"opt in" directly.
3 IETF Meetings
The computer industry is rife with conferences, seminars,
expositions, and all manner of other kinds of meetings. IETF face-
to-face meetings are not like these. The meetings, held three times
a year, are week-long gatherings with the primary goals of helping
Working Groups get their tasks done, and promoting a fair amount of
mixing among the WGs and the Areas. IETF meetings are of little
interest to sales and marketing folks, but of high interest to
engineers and developers.
For many people, IETF meetings are a breath of fresh air when
compared to the standard computer industry conferences. There is no
exposition hall, few tutorials, and no big-name industry pundits.
Instead, there is lots of work, as well as a fair amount of time for
socializing for many participants. The IETF believes that having a
drink together (often beer in the hotel lobby, but drink whatever you
want) is highly conducive to collaboration.
On the other hand, IETFers can sometimes be surprisingly direct,
sometimes verging on rude. To build a climate in which people of
many different backgrounds are treated with dignity, decency, and
respect, the IETF has an anti-harassment policy
(https://www.ietf.org/blog/ietf-anti-harassment-policy), a code of
conduct (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp54), and an Ombudsteam
(https://www.ietf.org/contact/ombudsteam) that you can reach out to.
The general flow of an IETF meeting is that it begins with an IETF
Hackathon (https://www.ietf.org/how/runningcode/) on Saturday and
Sunday, tutorials and an informal gathering on Sunday, and WG and BoF
meetings Monday through Friday. WG meetings last for between one and
2.5 hours each, and some WGs meet more than once, depending on how
much work they anticipate doing. The WG chairs set the agenda for
their meeting time(s).
There is a plenary session during the week, sometimes two. Either
the first part, or a separate Technical Plenary, will have one or
more technical presentations on topics of interest to many Working
Groups. This is organized by the IAB. The Administrative Plenary is
organized by the IETF Chair, and will have greetings from the meeting
sponsor, reports on meeting attendance and IETF finances, and
progress reports from most groups mentioned in the "Hierarchy"
section above. This ends with an "open mic" session, with the
various groups on stage. This is a good time to share administrative
concerns; praise is welcome, but more often concerns and gripes are
raised.
There have been more than 110 IETF meetings so far. The list of
future meetings is available online
(https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/upcoming/), and they are also
announced on the _ietf-announce_ mailing list mentioned above.
Note that COVID-19 disrupted the in-person meetings. After several
virtual or online meetings, the IETF tried its first hybrid meeting,
in Vienna, in March 2022.
3.1 Registration
To attend an IETF meeting, either online or in person, you have to
register and pay a registration fee. If you cannot afford the online
registration fee, you can apply for a fee waiver during the
registration process. The meeting site (if the meeting is not purely
online) is generally announced at several months ahead of the meeting
-- earlier if possible. An announcement goes out via email to the
_ietf-announce_ mailing list, and information is posted on the IETF
web site (https://www.ietf.org), that same day. Upcoming meeting
locations are also mentioned at the plenary, and the host for the
next meeting often gives a welcome.
You can register online at the IETF website, or in person throughout
the week. There are different fee schedules for early-bird,
latecomers, single-day, and so on. The general registration fee
covers all of the week's meetings, the Sunday evening _Welcome
Reception_, and afternoon beverage and snack breaks.
The IETF and related organizations are committed to transparency and
protecting the privacy of individuals. For information about the
personal data that is collected, and how it is managed, please see
the privacy statement (https://www.ietf.org/privacy-statement/).
You might also consider subscribing to the meeting-specific email
list, which is presented as an option when you register to
participate in the meeting either in-person or remotely. Discussions
on the meetings list can be high volume and fairly wide-ranging about
meeting-specific issues, but it is also a channel for sharing
information that many find useful to understand what is going on
during the meeting itself. Topics often include information about
local mass transit, interesting sites to see, desire to buy or sell a
social event ticket, and so on. Local experts, people who live in
the area, often respond to questions and can be very helpful.
Sunday is an excellent day to join the meeting, unless you already
came on Saturday for the hackathon. Sunday is the day for the
newcomer's tutorial, as well the Quick Connections session where
newcomers get to meet with experienced IETF participants. After
these sessions there is the welcome reception, a popular event where
you can get a small bite to eat and socialize with other attendees.
During registration, you will be asked to confirm that you agree to
follow the _Note Well_. You can also read it, anytime, online
(https://www.ietf.org/about/note-well/). This points out the rules
for IETF intellectual property rights (IPR), anti-harassment, and
other important guiding policies for the IETF. These slides will
also be shown before every WG session; as it gets later in the week,
the slide transitions tend to get faster and faster.
If you need to leave messages for other attendees, you can do so at
the cork boards that are usually near the IETF registration desk.
These cork boards will also have last-minute meeting changes and room
changes. The agenda is available online, and changes can happen up
to the last minute, such as cancelling a WG meeting.
You can also turn in lost-and-found items to the registration desk.
At the end of the meeting, anything left over from the lost-and-found
will usually be turned over to the hotel or brought back to the
Secretariat's office. Incidentally, the IETF registration desk is
often a convenient place to arrange to meet people. If someone says
"meet me at registration," you should clarify if they mean the IETF
registration desk, or the hotel registration desk: This has been a
common cause of missed connections.
3.2 Take the Plunge and Stay All Week!
IETF WG meetings are scheduled from Monday morning through Friday
afternoon. Associated non-WG meetings often take place on the
preceding or following weekends, and unofficial "side meetings" can
also be scheduled during the week. It is best to plan to be present
the whole week, to benefit from cross-fertilization between WGs and
from hallway discussions (both offline as well as in online
environments such as the _gather.town_ website). As noted below, the
agenda is fluid, and there have been instances of participants
missing important sessions due to last-minute scheduling changes
after their travel plans were fixed. Being present the whole week is
the only way to avoid this annoyance.
If you cannot find meetings all week to interest you, you can still
make the most of the IETF meeting by working between sessions.
Almost every attendee has a laptop, and it is common to see many of
them in the terminal room or in the lobbies and hallways working
during meeting sessions. The IETF sets up a high-speed network
throughout the hotel for the duration of the meeting, and there's no
charge to use the "IETF wifi." This usually covers many places of
the meeting venue (restaurants, coffee shops, and so on), so catching
up on email when not in meetings is a fairly common task for IETFers.
Note that many people use their laptops actively during meeting
sessions for practical purposes such as consulting drafts. Power
strips in all meeting rooms and hotel rooms will provide only the
sockets permitted by local regulations, so ensure in advance that you
have an appropriate travel adapter.
3.3 Newcomer Training
Newcomers should attend the Newcomer's Tutorial on Sunday, which is
especially designed for them. The tutorial is organized and
conducted by the IETF Education, Mentoring, and Outreach Directorate
(_EMODIR_) team and is intended to provide useful introductory
information. The session covers the structure of the IETF, how to
get the most out of the meeting, and many other essential and
enlightening topics for new IETFers. The IETF has a YouTube channel
(https://www.youtube.com/user/ietf) which has the previous tutorials.
This has recently been broken down into four 15-minute segments
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW1cDLmr91c&list=PLC86T-
6ZTP5imxIwnF0mYxWVp0sbqDR0J&pp=iAQB) which might be easier to view.
_Quick Connections_ is a session limited to newcomers and experienced
IETF participants. It is a great chance to meet people, and
establish contacts that can be useful during the rest of the week.
Registration is required as space is limited. It is held right
before the welcome reception.
3.4 Dress Code
At meetings people generally dress informally, and newcomers could
feel out of place if they show up Monday morning in suits. The
general rule is "dress for casual comfort." Note that the hotel air
conditioning might mean bringing a sweater or other covering as well.
3.5 Working Group Meetings
The heart of an IETF meeting is the WG meetings themselves.
Different WGs chairs have very different styles, so it is impossible
to generalize how a WG meeting will feel. All WGs have agendas,
however, and most will follow the following approach.
At the beginning of the meeting, the chair will pass around the _blue
sheets_, which are paper forms on which everyone writes their name
and their affiliation. These are archived and used for planning
capacity needs for the next time the WG meets. In very rare cases,
they have been used to indicate exactly who showed up. When you are
handed the sheet, sign your name and pass it along in the same
direction. If you arrive after the start, at the end of the meeting
you can go up front and sign it then. For virtual attendance using
the _MeetEcho_ video conference system, attendance is handled by
accessing the application.
After the blue sheets, there are calls for volunteers to take
minutes. More than one person can do so, and they are often done on
a Web page using a collaborative editing app. Taking minutes can be
a good way to ensure you follow the discussions without distraction!
The link to the web page will be part of the WG entry that is part of
the online meeting agenda. There is also a chance to make any last-
minute updates to the agenda. This is known as "agenda bashing."
Finally, there will be a review of the Note Well. The order in which
these things happen can vary, but they are all done before the
meeting really "starts."
To speak during a meeting, go to the microphone(s) located near the
middle of the room. For controversial topics, there will be a line
at the mic, but do not hesitate to be the first person at the line if
you have a question or a contribution to the discussion. The WG
chair or presenter will indicate when you can speak. Although it
would be easier to just raise your hand from where you are sitting,
the mics perform a very useful task: they let the people listening
remotely and in the room hear your question or comment. When you
first speak, say your name and affiliation for identification
purposes. If you miss this, folks will often say "name!" to remind
you. Don't be embarrassed if this happens, it's not uncommon.
3.6 Seeing Spots Before Your Eyes
Some attendees will have a little colored dot on their name tag, and
a few people have more than one. These dots identify people who have
volunteered to do extra work, such as being a WG chair, an IESG
member, and so on. The colors have the meanings shown here.
+========+=============================+
| Color | Meaning |
+========+=============================+
| Blue | Working Group/BOF Chair |
+--------+-----------------------------+
| Green | Meeting Host/Sponsor |
+--------+-----------------------------+
| Red | IAB member |
+--------+-----------------------------+
| Yellow | IESG member |
+--------+-----------------------------+
| Pink | IRSG member |
+--------+-----------------------------+
| Orange | Nominating Committee member |
+--------+-----------------------------+
| Black | IETF LLC Board |
+--------+-----------------------------+
Table 3
Members of the press wear orange-tinted badges with the word "press"
on them.
As newcomer, don't be afraid to strike up conversations with people
who wear these dots. If the IAB and IESG members and Working Group
and BOF chairs didn't want to talk to anybody, they wouldn't be
wearing the dots in the first place! Note, however, that IETF
meetings are usually intense times for Area Directors. Talking to an
AD during an IETF meeting will often result in them asking you to
send email after the meeting ends. Also, when you start a hallway
conversation with an Area Director (or even a WG chair, for that
matter), it is often good to give them about 30 seconds of context
for the discussion.
Near the registration area there are usually ribbons and markers so
that people can label their specific interests, history, and so on.
Many people use them to make (inside) jokes, which are sometimes
amusing.
3.7 Terminal Room
The IETF wifi is provided by volunteers who run the Network
Operations Center (NOC). The terminal room is where you can get
wired connectivity and limited access to a printer. The people and
companies that donate their equipment, services, and time are to be
heartily congratulated and thanked.
You must be wearing your badge in order to get into the terminal
room. The terminal room provides power strips, Ethernet ports, and
wifi (for the people who don't need Ethernet but want power). What
it doesn't provide are terminals; the name is historical. The help
desk in the terminal room is also a good place to ask questions about
network failures, although they might point you off to different
networking staff.
3.8 Meals and Snacks
Although it is true that some people eat very well at the IETF, they
find the food on their own since lunches and dinners are not included
in the registration fee. In addition to socializing, dinner meetings
can be a good way to get additional work done.
If sponsorship for it is secured, the welcome reception provides
drinks and appetizers but is not meant to be a full replacement for
dinner. Sometimes a continental breakfast can be included with the
hotel registration. There IETF meeting also includes a morning
coffee and snack break, and a similar one in the afternoon.
If you prefer to get out of the hotel for meals, the local host
usually provides a list of places to eat within easy reach of the
meeting site, and the meeting-specific email list is also a useful
source.
3.9 Social Event
Another of the most important things organized and managed by the
host is the IETF social event. The social event is sometimes high-
tech-related event, or it might be in an art museum or a reception
hall. Note, however, that not all IETF meetings have social events.
Newcomers to the IETF are encouraged to attend the social event.
Wear your name tag and leave your laptop behind. The social event is
designed to give people a chance to meet on a social, rather than
technical, level. The social ticket costs extra, is reserved at
registration time, and has limited capacity. People looking to buy
or sell a social ticket often post to the email list, or on the
corkboards mentioned above.
3.10 Agenda
The agenda for the IETF meetings is a very fluid thing. It is
available on the web and through the IETF mobile apps starting a few
weeks before the meeting. Of course, "final" in the IETF doesn't
mean the same thing as it does elsewhere in the world. The final
agenda is simply the last version posted before the meeting. The
Secretariat will post agenda changes on the bulletin board near the
IETF registration desk (reminder, not the hotel registration desk!).
These late changes are not capricious: they are made "just in time"
as session chairs and speakers become aware of unanticipated
conflicts. The IETF is too dynamic for agendas to be tied down weeks
in advance.
A map showing the hotel layout and, specifically the meeting rooms,
is also available with the agenda. Room assignments can change as
the agenda changes. Some Working Groups meet multiple times during a
meeting, and every attempt is made to have a Working Group meet in
the same room for each session.
3.11 EMODIR to the Rescue
If, after you finish reading this document, certain aspects of the
IETF still mystify you, you'll want to drop in on the on-site
training offered by the Education, Mentoring, and Outreach (EMODIR)
team. In addition to the Newcomer training mentioned above, EMODIR
also hosts informal newcomer gatherings during the coffee break
sessions. Details vary for each meeting, so watch the agenda and the
newcomer-specific email list.
EMODIR also organized in-depth technical tutorials, useful for
newcomers and experienced IETFers alike. These are also announced as
part of the program, and are usually on Sundays.
Finally, EMODIR runs the _IETF Guides_ program, pairing newcomers
with an experienced IETF person to help you become acclimated and
effective quickly. This has not worked out very well during the all-
virtual meetings, frankly. If you are interested, watch for the
announcement. Ideally you have a call with your mentor before the
meeting, a meeting during the beginning of the meeting, and check in
some time during the meeting, so they can help you with any questions
you might have.
Details on EMODIR membership and charter are available online
(https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/emodir/about/).
3.12 Where Do I Fit In?
The IETF is different things to different people. There are many
people who have been very active in the IETF who have never attended
an IETF meeting, and you should not feel obligated to come to an IETF
meeting just to get a feel for the IETF. If, however, you decide to
come, this document and RFC 4144: How to Gain Prominence and
Influence in Standards Organizations (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc4144) provides some pointers on how to make your
meeting a success. The following guidelines (based on stereotypes of
people in various industries) might help you decide whether you
actually want to come and, if so, what might be the best use of your
time at your first meeting.
3.12.1 IT Managers
As discussed throughout this document, an IETF meeting is nothing
like any trade show you have attended. IETF meetings are singularly
bad places to go if your intention is to find out what will be hot in
the Internet industry next year. You can safely assume that going to
Working Group meetings will confuse you more than it will help you
understand what is happening, or will be happening, in the industry.
This is not to say that no one from the industry should go to IETF
meetings. As an IT manager, you might want to consider sending
specific people who are responsible for technologies that are under
development in the IETF. As these people read the current Internet-
Drafts and email traffic on the relevant Working Group lists, they
will get a sense of whether or not their presence would be worthwhile
for your company or for the Working Groups.
3.12.2 Network Operators and ISPs
Knowledge of how networks are run is indispensable for the
development of new (versions of) protocols. Especially if you work
for the type of network that is always using the very latest hardware
and software, and you are already following the relevant Working
Groups, you could certainly find participating in the IETF valuable.
Note that the IETF has several WGs focused on operations, that might
be particularly relevant.
Finally, note that the IETF is increasingly focused on encrypting
network traffic, and that this has implications for operators. A
fair amount of IETF work also covers many other parts of operations
of ISPs and large enterprises, and the input of operators from each
of these types of organizations is quite valuable to keep this work
vibrant and relevant. Many of the best operations documents from the
IETF come from real-world operators, not vendors and academics.
3.12.3 Networking Hardware and Software Vendors
The image of the IETF being mostly network researchers may have been
true in the distant past, but the jobs of today's attendees are
typically in industry. In most areas of the IETF, employees of
vendors are the ones writing the protocols and leading the Working
Groups, so it's completely appropriate for vendors to attend. If you
create Internet hardware or software, or run a service available on
the Internet, and no one from your company has ever attended an IETF
meeting, it behooves you to come to a meeting if for no other reason
than to tell the others how relevant the meeting was or was not to
your business.
This is not to say that companies should close up shop during IETF
meeting weeks so everyone can go to the meeting. Marketing folks,
even technical marketing folks or pre-sales, are safe in staying away
from the IETF as long as some of the technical people from the
company are at the meeting. Similarly, it isn't required, or likely
useful, for everyone from a technical department to go, especially if
they are not all reading the Internet-Drafts and following the
Working Group mailing lists. Many companies have just a few
designated meeting attendees who are chosen for their ability to do
complete and useful trip reports. In addition, many companies have
internal coordination efforts and a standards strategy. If a company
depends on the Internet for some or all of its business, the strategy
should probably cover the IETF, but note that IETF participation is
as an _individual_ not a formal representative of their employer.
3.12.4 Academics
IETF meetings are often excellent places for all kinds of researchers
to find out what is happening in the way of soon-to-be-deployed
protocols, and networking architecture and infrastructure.
Professors and grad students (and sometimes overachieving undergrads)
who are doing research in networking or communications can get a
wealth of information by following Working Groups in their specific
fields of interest. Wandering into different Working Group meetings
can have the same effect as going to symposia and seminars in your
department. Researchers are also, of course, likely to be interested
in IRTF activities.
In addition, the IRTF and ACM co-host the annual Applied Networking
Research Workshop (https://irtf.org/anrw/), normally scheduled during
the July IETF meeting Registration is required, IETF attendees can
attend for free. The IRTF also hosts the Applied Networking Research
Prize (https://irtf.org/anrp/), which includes a cash prize, a travel
grant to attend, and a chance to present. See the web page for
requirements.
3.12.5 Computer Trade Press
If you're a member of the press and are considering attending IETF,
please see the special section below.
3.13 Proceedings
IETF proceedings are compiled in the weeks and months after each
meeting and are available online (https://www.ietf.org/how/meetings/
proceedings/). Be sure to look through a copy at least once; the
proceedings are filled with information about IETF that you're not
likely to find anywhere else. For example, you'll copies of every
session's slides, links to the video recording, copies of the blue
sheets (attendance), and so on.
3.14 Other General Things
IETFers in general are very approachable. Never be afraid to
approach someone and introduce yourself. Also, don't be afraid to
ask questions, especially when it comes to jargon and acronyms. If
someone is presenting an update to their draft, feel free to step up
to the mic and ask a clarifying question. Before you do, however,
make sure to have read the draft first. Working Group meetings are
not a time for general tutorials.
Hallway conversations are very important. A lot of very good work
gets done by people who talk together between meetings and over
lunches and dinners. Every minute of the IETF can be considered work
time (much to some people's dismay).
A side meeting (historically but often inaccurately called a "bar
BOF") is an unofficial get-together between WG meetings or in the
late evening, during which a lot of work gets done. These side
meetings spring up in many different places around an IETF meeting,
such as restaurants, coffee shops, unused hall spaces and the like.
You can read more about Birds-of-a Feather sessions (BOFs) in section
5.
The IETF meetings, and the plenary session in particular, are not
places for vendors to try to sell their wares. People can certainly
answer questions about their company and its products, but bear in
mind that the IETF is not a trade show.
There is always a "materials distribution table" near the
registration desk. This desk is used to make appropriate information
available to the attendees (e.g., copies of something discussed in a
Working Group session, descriptions of online IETF-related
information). Please check with the Secretariat before placing
materials on the desk; the Secretariat has the right to remove
material that they feel is not appropriate.
3.15 Remote Participation
People have joined IETF meetings remotely for a long time, but the
tools for this have changed a lot over the years. Currently the IETF
uses a browser- based tool known as _MeetEcho_. There is also a text-
based discussion forum called _Jabber_. This is integrated into
MeetEcho, but there are also stand-alone clients available. Planned
for 2022, the _Zulip_ text will be available. Each WG will have its
own stream.
The links for the Meetecho rooms, the Jabber chats, and meeting
materials, can always be found in the right-hand side of the agenda,
under the different icons. All sessions are recorded and can be
viewed after the meeting, along with chat logs and meeting minutes.
This can be useful to refresh your memory while writing a trip
report, or for catching up on what happened when you wanted to be in
two WG meetings at once. It happens; scheduling conflicts are
unavoidable.
4 Working Groups
The vast majority of the IETF's work is done in its many Working
Groups; at the time of this writing, there are well over one hundred
different WGs. BCP 25 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp25), "IETF
Working Group Guidelines and Procedures," is an excellent resource
for anyone participating in WG discussions. The full list of working
groups can be found on the datatracker (https://datatracker.ietf.org/
wg/).
A WG is really just a mailing list with a bit of supervision and
facilitation. You "join" the WG by subscribing to the mailing list;
all mailing lists are open to anyone. Anyone can post to a WG
mailing list, although non-subscribers have to have their postings
approved first.
More importantly, each WG has a charter that the WG is supposed to
follow. The charter states the scope of discussion for the Working
Group and its goals. The WG's mailing list and face-to-face meetings
are supposed to focus on only what is in the charter and not to
wander off on other "interesting" topics. Of course, looking a bit
outside the scope of the WG is occasionally useful, but the large
majority of the discussion should be on the topics listed in the
charter. In fact, some WG charters actually specify what the WG will
not do, particularly if there were some attractive but nebulous
topics brought up during the drafting of the charter. The list of
all WG charters makes interesting reading for folks who want to know
what the different Working Groups are supposed to be doing. Each WG
has its own page on the datatracker.
4.1 Working Group Chairs
Each Working Group has one or two (or, rarely, three) chairs. The
role of the WG chairs is described in both BCP 11 (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/bcp11) and BCP 25 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/
bcp25).
Chairs have responsibility for the technical and non-technical
quality of WG output. The chair must keep the WG productive, and
making progress on its drafts. Sometimes there is a WG Secretary to
help. Document editors, too, are usually incentivized to make
progress on their drafts. The chair must manage WG discussion, both
on the list and by scheduling meetings when appropriate. Sometimes
discussions get stuck on contentious points and the chair may need to
steer people toward productive interaction and then declare when
rough consensus has been met and the discussion is over. Sometimes
chairs also manage interactions with non-WG participants or the IESG,
especially when a WG document approaches publication. As you can
imagine given the mix of secretarial, interpersonal, and technical
demands, some Working Group chairs are much better at their jobs than
others.
4.2 Getting Things Done in a Working Group
One fact that confuses many newcomers is that the face-to-face WG
meetings are much less important in the IETF than they are in most
other organizations. Any decision made at a face-to-face meeting
must also gain consensus on the WG mailing list. This is sometimes
phrased as "at the last WG meeting, we decided XXX; if you disagree
please speak up by the end of the week" and you'll therefore often
hear the phrase "to be confirmed on the list." There are numerous
examples of important decisions made in WG meetings that are later
overturned on the mailing list, often because someone who couldn't
attend the meeting pointed out a serious flaw in the logic used to
come to the decision. Finally, WG meetings aren't "drafting
sessions" as they are in some other standards bodies: in the IETF,
drafting is done elsewhere.
Another aspect of Working Groups that confounds many people is the
fact that there is no formal voting. The general rule on disputed
topics is that the Working Group has to come to "rough consensus,"
meaning that a very large majority of those who care must agree, and
that those in the minority have had a chance to explain why.
Generally consensus is determined by _humming_: if you agree with a
proposal, you hum when prompted by the chair. Most hum questions
come in three parts: you hum to the first part if you agree with the
proposal, to the second part if you disagree, or to the third part if
you do not have enough information to make up your mind. Newcomers
find it quite peculiar, but it works. It is up to the chair to
decide when the Working Group has reached rough consensus; sometimes
the responsible AD will also do so.
The lack of formal voting has caused some very long delays for some
proposals, but most IETF participants who have witnessed rough
consensus after acrimonious debates feel that the delays often result
in better protocols. (And, if you think about it, how could you have
"voting" in a group that invites all interested individuals to
participate, and when it's impossible to count the participants?) A
common definition and practice of humming can be found in RFC 7282:
On Consensus and Humming in the IETF (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc7282).
A related problem is that some people think that their topic should
be discussed in the WG even when the WG chair believes it is outside
the scope of the charter. If the WG agrees, they can work to _re-
charter_ so that the topic is in scope. The individual can also
bring their concerns to the responsible AD.
When a WG has fulfilled its charter, it is supposed to cease
operations. (Most WG mailing lists continue on after a WG is closed,
still discussing the same topics as the Working Group did.) In the
IETF, it is a mark of success that the WG closes up because it
fulfilled its charter. This is one of the aspects of the IETF that
newcomers who have experience with other standards bodies have a hard
time understanding.
4.3 Working Group Documents
There is an official distinction between WG I-Ds and individual I-Ds.
A WG will have to review an individual draft before deciding if it
should be adopted by the WG. The WG chairs appoint who will be the
authors or editors of the I-Ds; often those who wrote the initial
draft continue work on behalf of the WG. Procedures for Internet-
Drafts are covered in much more detail later in this document.
For Working Group documents, the document editor serves at the
pleasure of the WG Chair. There is often more than one editor for
Working Group documents, particularly for complex documents. The
document editor is responsible for ensuring that the contents of the
document accurately reflects Working Group decisions; when a document
editor does not follow the WG consensus, the WG Chairs will either be
more forceful about getting changes that match the consensus or
replace the document editor with someone more responsive to the WG.
As a Working Group document is progressing, participants suggest
changes on the Working Group's mail list (or online if the document
is maintained somewhere accessible); the editors are expected to
follow the discussion and make changes when there is consensus.
Sometimes a Working Group will consider several alternatives before
selecting a particular Internet-Draft as a Working Group document. A
Working Group will often take ideas from several of the alternatives
to create a single Working Group document; in such a case, the chair
determines who will be listed as authors on the title page and who
will be acknowledged as contributors in the body of the document.
When a WG document is ready to progress beyond the WG, the WG Chairs
will assign a "shepherd" to take over the final process. The role of
the document shepherd is described in RFC 4858: Document Shepherding
from Working Group Last Call to Publication (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc4858). The chair, who knows the history of the
draft within the WG, often does the shepherd write-up.
4.4 Preparing for Working Group Meetings
The most important thing that *everyone* should do before coming to a
face-to-face meeting is to read the Internet-Drafts and RFCs ahead of
time. WG meetings are explicitly not for education: they are for
developing the group's documents and often the document is presented
as a set of slides saying "here's what changed since last meeting."
Even if you do not plan to say anything in the meeting, you should
read, or at least skim, the group's documents before attending so you
can understand what is being said.
It's up to the WG chairs to set the meeting agenda, usually a few
weeks in advance. If you want something discussed at the meeting, be
sure to let the chair know about it. The agendas for all the WG
meetings are available in advance on the datatracker, and links to
will be found on every full meeting agenda. Unfortunately, some WG
chairs are lax (if not totally negligent) about turning them in.
The Secretariat only makes the full IETF meeting schedule a few weeks
in advance, and the schedule often changes as little as a week before
the first day. If you are only coming for one WG meeting, you may
have a hard time booking your flight with such little notice,
particularly if the Working Group's meeting changes schedule. Be
sure to keep track of the current agenda so you can schedule flights
and hotels. But, when it comes down to it, you probably shouldn't be
coming for just one WG meeting. It's likely that your knowledge
could be valuable in a few WGs, assuming that you've read the I-Ds
and RFCs for those groups. Work in the IETF is often reciprocal,
contribute positively to others work and you are more likely to
receive comments and feedback on your work.
If you are on the agenda at a face-to-face meeting, you should
prepare a few slides and mail them to the chair before the meeting.
Don't come with a tutorial; people are supposed to read the I-Ds in
advance. Projectors for laptop-based presentations are available in
all the meeting rooms.
And here's a tip for your slides: don't put your company's logo on
every one, even though that is a common practice outside the IETF.
The IETF frowns on this kind of corporate advertising (except for the
meeting sponsor in the plenary presentation), and most presenters
don't even put their logo on their opening slide. The IETF is about
technical content, not company boosterism. Slides are often plain
black and white for legibility, with color used only when it really
adds clarity. Again, the content is the most important part of the
slides, not how it's presented.
One thing you might find helpful, and possibly even entertaining,
during Working Group sessions is to follow the running commentary on
the Jabber room associated with that Working Group. Jabber is a
free, streaming XML technology mainly used for instant messaging.
You can find pointers to Jabber clients for many platforms at
(https://xmpp.org/xmpp-software/clients). The Jabber chatrooms have
the name of the Working Group followed by "@jabber.ietf.org". Those
rooms are, in fact, available year-round, not just during IETF
meetings, and some are used by active Working Group participants
during protocol development.
4.5 Working Group Mailing Lists
As we mentioned earlier, the IETF announcement and discussion mailing
lists are the central mailing lists for IETF activities. However,
there are many other mailing lists related to IETF work. For
example, every Working Group has its own discussion list. In
addition, there are some long-term technical debates that have been
moved off of the IETF list onto lists created specifically for those
topics. It is highly recommended that you follow the discussions on
the mailing lists of the Working Groups that you wish to attend. The
more work that is done on the mailing lists, the less work that will
need to be done at the meeting, leaving time for cross pollination
(i.e., attending Working Groups outside one's primary areas of
interest in order to broaden one's perspective).
The mailing lists also provide a forum for those who wish to follow,
or contribute to, the Working Groups' efforts, but can't attend the
IETF meetings. That's why IETF procedures require all decisions to
be confirmed "on the list" and you will often hear a WG chair say,
"Let's take it to the list" to close a discussion.
Every WG has a dedicated page on the datatracker site, and the
"About" tab will point to mailing list subscription and archives.
4.6 Interim Working Group Meetings
Working Groups sometimes hold interim meetings between IETFs.
Interim meetings aren't a substitute for IETF meetings, however -- a
group can't decide to skip a meeting in a location they're not fond
of and meet in Cancun (or even someplace mundane) three weeks later,
for example. Interim meetings need to be announced at least one
month in advance. Location and timing need to allow fair access for
all participants. Like regular IETF meetings, someone needs to take
notes and the group needs to take attendance. Decisions tentatively
made during an interim WG meeting must still be confirmed on the
mailing list. Interim meetings are subject to the IETF Note Well.
Most interim meetings are virtual these days and have the same
reporting requirements as face-to-face virtual meetings.
The IESG has rules for advance notice on time and place of interim
Working Group meetings, as well as reporting the results of the
meetings. The purpose of these rules is to make interim meetings
accessible to as many Working Group members as possible and to
maintain the transparency of the Working Group process.
5 BOFs and Dispatching
In order to form a Working Group, you need a charter and someone who
is able to be chair. In order to get those things, you need to get
people interested so that they can help focus the charter and
convince an Area Director that the project is worthwhile. A face-to-
face meeting is useful for this. In fact, very few WGs get started
without an initial meeting.
A _Birds of a Feather_ (BOF) meeting has to be approved by the Area
Director in the relevant area, in consultation with the IESG and the
IAB, before it can be scheduled. If you think you need a new WG,
approach an AD with your proposal and see what they think. You will
have to write some informative background text, and they will work
with you to get it scheduled. Of course, you can also gather
interested people and work on a draft charter in the meantime.
BOF meetings have a very different tone than do WG meetings. The
purpose of a BOF is to make sure that a good charter with good
milestones can be created, that there are enough people willing to do
the work needed in order to create standards, and that any standards
would get adoption. Often a self-selected group of key people will
get together after the BOF to refine the draft charter.
Generally, there are only two BOF meetings allowed for the same
topic. Sometimes it is obvious after one meeting that a WG should be
created, and sometimes it is obvious a WG would not be successful.
If you have a draft already written, you can submit it to the
relevant "dispatch" WG. Each area has one of these. Their job is to
review submitted documents, and come to a decision about the next
steps: possibilities include create a new WG, send to an existing WG,
hold a BOF, and so on.
An advantage of using the dispatch WG compared to a BOF is that the
discussion is more limited and focused. On the other hand, a draft
might tend to limit what the other folks in the BOF want to do in the
charter. Remember that most BOFs are held in order to get support
for an eventual Working Group, not to get support for a particular
document.
6 RFCs and Internet-Drafts
This section discusses Internet-Drafts and RFCs in the IETF stream,
that is, it describes how documents are produced and advanced within
the IETF. For a brief note on other RFC streams, see above.
If you're a new IETF participant and are looking for a particular RFC
or Internet-Draft, you can use the IETF _Datatracker_. This website,
https://datatracker.ietf.org/ (https://datatracker.ietf.org/), has a
text search capability (including content, keywords, author, and so
on), and the search results point to the document status, page count,
and other useful information. A little-known hint is that
_dt.ietf.org_ is an abbreviation (a DNS CNAME entry) for the longer
"datatracker.ietf.org" hostname.
Most RFCs in the IETF stream follow the same process, and the
sections below discuss the process and some of the issues. Note that
there are other ways to get an RFC published
(https://www.ietf.org/about/participate/get-
started/#officialdocuments), particularly if it is not intended for
the standards track. For the sake of brevity, we will not mention
those here. After all, this document is about "the Way of the IETF"
and the main Way is "developing standards."
If you are interested in learning more about how to author an
Internet-Draft yourself, the I-D Authors website
(https://authors.ietf.org) has a lot of information and resources,
including pointers to online tools that can help.
6.1 The Overall Process
The very first step is to have a draft document. Internet-Drafts
should follow a specific format, and are required to have particular
sections. This will be discussed more below.
RFCs are generally written by a Working Group. If an appropriate WG
doesn't seem to exist, then the BOF or Dispatch process mentioned
above can be used to learn which one is appropriate, or start the
process to create one.
Once a potential WG exists, the document must be _adopted_. To do
this, you submit your individual draft to the datatracker. It should
start with draft-YOURNAME-brief-subject where _YOURNAME_ is your
name. Send a note to the WG mailing list, with an introduction to
the draft, and why you think it is appropriate. After any
discussion, the WG Chair will issue a _call for adoption_. If
consensus is to adopt the draft, you will be asked to submit it with
the name draft-ietf-WGNAME-brief-subject; you can probably guess what
_WGNAME_ should be.
Note that as part of submitting an Internet Draft according to the
rules, you grant the IETF certain rights. These rights give the IETF
the ability to reliably build upon the work you have brought forward.
These rights are held by the IETF Trust. BCP 78 (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/rfc/rfc5378.html) explains the certain rights the IETF
Trust takes on for submissions.
Once a WG adopt a document, the WG as a whole has the right of
"change control." This means the WG, can make any changes to the
document, the one you initially wrote, that they want. If you are
not comfortable with this, then the IETF is not the place for your
document. There are a few more details on this below.
The WG now "works on" the document. This will be a combination of
mailing list discussion, perhaps agenda time at a meeting, and
publishing updated drafts. (Every draft ends with _-NN_ where the
digits indicate the draft number.)
At some point, the document will seem finished. The WG Chair will
put the document in _WG Last Call_ (WGLC) which gives the members of
the WG a chance for last-minute changes. It can be frustrating to
get a bunch of changes after you think you're done, but don't take it
personally. Like many things, people are often deadline-driven.
After WGLC, the responsible AD (the one who oversees the WG) does a
review. They will probably have comments that must be resolved by
you and the WG; it's quite likely you'll have to publish a new draft.
Then the IESG and the overall IETF reviews the draft, as mentioned
above. The purpose of IETF Last Call is to get community-wide
discussion on documents before the IESG considers them. Note the
word _discussion_ here. It is generally considered bad form to send
IETF Last Call comments on documents that you have not read, or to
send comments but not be prepared to discuss your views. The IETF
Last Call is not a vote. Having said that, IETF Last Call comments
that come from people who have just read the document for the first
time can expose issues that IETF and WG regulars may have completely
missed, which is why the discussion is open to everyone.
Finally, the draft is given to the RFC Production Center (RPC), and
prepared for publication. There might be other changes required,
including reviews by IANA for registrations and the like. The most
common item you'll hear about this is _AUTH48_ state, which means the
document is in the final stages of copy-editing by the RPC and you.
The publication process can take weeks, but be patient, and you'll
eventually see an email announcement saying that your brand-new RFC
has been published. Congratulations!
A much more complete explanation of these steps is contained in BCP 9
(https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp9). This set of documents goes
into great detail on a topic that is very often misunderstood, even
by seasoned IETF participants: different types of RFCs go through
different processes and have different rankings.
6.2 Common Issues
There are two major issues that often come up while preparing I-Ds:
copyright and patents.
We discussed copyright above, but expand on it here. When the IETF
adopts an Internet-Draft, it is required that the _boilerplate_, the
common text that appears in every draft, has a notice that says the
IETF, _and the document authors_ own the copyright. This means that
while the IETF can do what it wants with the document, within
limitations so can you. You cannot, for example, claim this is an
IETF standard, nor use the IETF trademarks.
Incidentally, the change control on Internet standards doesn't end
when the RFC is published. Things can be changed later for a number
of reasons, such as to solve a newly-discovered problem or address
new use-cases. These later changes are also under the control of the
IETF, not the editors of the standards document.
The second issue is patents. The goal of the IETF is to have its
standards widely used and validated by the marketplace. If creating
a product that uses a standard requires getting a license for a
patent, people are less likely to implement the standard. Not
surprisingly, then, the general rule has been "use good non-patented
technology where possible."
Of course, this isn't always possible. Sometimes patents appear
after a standard has been established and there is little the IETF
can do about that. Sometimes there's a patent on something that is
so valuable that there isn't a non-patented equivalent, and generally
the IETF tries to avoid it.
Sometimes the patent holder is generous and promises to give all
implementors of a standard a royalty-free license to the patent,
thereby making it almost as easy to implement as it would have been
if no patent existed. Ideally, and this is the common case when a
patent-holder is active in a document, the patent holder will grant
free use of the patent to implement the specification.
The official rules for all intellectual property rights (IPR) in IETF
documents, not just patents but also code samples and the like, are
covered in BCP 78 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp78) and BCP 79
(https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp79).
If you are writing an Internet-Draft and you know of a patent that
applies to the technology you're writing about, don't list the patent
in the document. Instead, consult the IPR disclosures
(https://datatracker.ietf.org/ipr/about/) page. If you still have
issues, consult with the WG Chair or the responsible AD.
Intellectual property rights aren't mentioned in RFCs because RFCs
never change after they are published, while knowledge of IPR can
change at any time. Therefore, an IPR list in an RFC could be
incomplete and mislead the reader. BCP 79 (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/bcp79) provides specific text that should be added to
RFCs where the author knows of IPR issues.
6.3 Writing an Internet-Draft
Every RFC starts its life as an I-D. Internet-Drafts have the same
format as an RFC, and are required to have all the content that
should appear in the RFC. This includes a couple of sections
detailed below. A draft may also have more information, such as an
incremental list of changes from previous versions of the draft, or
pointers to online locations for raising issues and suggesting
changes.
For the past several years, the official canonical source of RFCs as
RFC 7991: The "xml2rfc" Version 3 Vocabulary (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc7991). Some people enjoy writing in XML, and some
don't. An alternative for the second group is to use a specific
dialect of markdown, which is then converted to XML as needed (and
especially during the publication process). A recent trend is the
increasing use of markdown, and hosting I-Ds on GitHub to attract a
wider audience of Internet-savvy users. Some information on this can
be found at RFC 8874: Working Group GitHub Usage Guidance
(https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8874).
The IETF is setting up a new site, https://authors.ietf.org
(https://authors.ietf.org), to contain guides and online tools to
help both new and experienced authors. As of this writing, it's
still a draft but it does contain a great deal of useful content.
You should feel free to use the site, and offer feedback.
Outside of the formatting decision, the most important document you
can read is Guidelines to Authors of Internet-Drafts
(https://www.ietf.org/how/ids/guidelines). That document explains
the naming conventions, formatting requirements, required content,
and details of how to submit (also called _post_) your draft.
6.3.1 Internet-Draft Language
It is common for Internet-Drafts that revise existing RFCs to have
draft names with "bis" in them, meaning "again" or "twice." For
example, a draft might be called "draft-ietf-uta-rfc6125bis" meaning
that this is intended to be a revision of, and eventual replacement
for, RFC6125.
Writing clear specifications can be a bit of an art, particularly for
people who don't have English as their native language. You can keep
the specification very short, with just a list of requirements, but
that tends to cause implementors to take too much leeway. If you
instead make the specification very wordy with lots of suggestions,
implementors tend to miss the requirements (and often disagree with
your suggestions anyway). An optimal specification is somewhere in
between.
One way to make it more likely that developers will create
interoperable implementations of standards is to be clear about
what's being mandated in a specification. Over time, the IETF has
realized that defining a few words with specific meanings helps a
great deal. BCP 14 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp14) defines
about a dozen keywords that can be used to clarify what are
requirements, as compared to what is purely informative. It defines
the meaning of words like _MUST_ and points out that it has to appear
in all uppercase to its special meaning.
It is not uncommon for feedback on standards-track I-Ds to question
the particular uses of what is called "2119 language." For example,
"The document says MAY but doesn't explain why not; should it be a
MUST?"
6.3.2 About References
One aspect of writing IETF standards that trips up many newcomers is
the rule about how to make _normative references_ to non-IETF
documents or to other RFCs in a standard. A normative reference is a
reference to a document that must be followed in order to implement
the standard. A non-normative reference (sometimes called an
_informative reference_) is one that is helpful to an implementor but
not strictly needed to implement it.
An IETF standard may make a normative reference to any other
standards-track RFC that is at the same standards level or higher, or
to any "open standard" that has been developed outside the IETF. The
"same level or higher" rule means that before a standard can move
from Proposed to Internet Standard, all of the RFCs that appear as a
normative reference must also be an Internet Standard. This rule
gives implementors assurance that everything in an Internet standard
is quite stable, even the things referenced outside the standard.
This rule, and its exceptions, is described in BCP 97
(https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp97).
There is no hard-and-fast rule about what is an "open standard", but
generally this means a stable standard that was made by a generally-
recognized SDO, and that anyone can get a copy of, although not
necessarily for free. If the external standard changes, you have to
reference the particular instantiation of that standard in your
specification, as with a designation of the date of the standard.
Some external standards bodies don't make old standards available,
which is a problem for IETF standards that need to be used in the
future. When in doubt, ask the WG chair or AD if a particular
external standard can be used in an IETF standard.
6.3.3 About Required Content
Every draft is required to have some content. Some of this is
boilerplate text about copyright, "2119 keyword," and so on. The
document formatting tools will generate this for you automatically if
you use the right keyword. In addition, there are special sections
that might be required for your draft, and you (and the WG) will have
to write them.
Many IETF standards have extension points, such as unassigned fields
in a message header, or for something like email or HTTP, an actual
message header. As mentioned above, IANA maintains online registries
for these. Because of the large and diverse kinds of registries that
standards require, IANA needs to have specific information about how
to register parameters, what not to register, who (if anyone)
approves any registration requests, and so on.
Anyone writing a draft that needs one or more registries, or adds
values to existing registries must have an "IANA Considerations"
section. Authors should read BCP 26 (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/bcp26), "Guidelines for Writing an IANA
Considerations Section in RFCs," which describes how to properly ask
for IANA to make the changes requested in their draft. If there are
no considerations, it is a good idea to have the section and
explicitly say "This document has no IANA requests."
Every draft must have a "Security Considerations" section. This
describes possible threats or attacks, known vulnerabilities,
information that could be exposed, and so on. It should also
describe any strategies or mechanisms to mitigate them. When the
security directorate (SECDIR) reviews your draft, this section will
be one of their major focuses. Don't gloss over the section, or say
things like "use TLS to get security" without explaining how the
protocol uses TLS and what it provides. See BCP 72 (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/bcp72), "Guidelines for Writing RFC Text on Security
Considerations", for more information on writing good security
considerations sections.
Also, a draft might have a "Privacy Considerations" section. An
Informational RFC, RFC 6973: Privacy Considerations for Internet
Protocols (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6973), written by the
IAB, is intended to raise the general awareness of privacy on the
Internet. It also provides advice for when a draft should have an
explicit privacy section.
Some drafts benefit from having an "Implementation Status" section,
as explained by BCP 205: Improving Awareness of Running Code: The
Implementation Status Section (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/
rfc7942).
More detail on the required content can be found online
(https://authors.ietf.org/en/required-content).
6.4 Standards-Track RFCs
If the IESG approves the draft to become a standards-track RFC, they
ask the RPC to publish it as a _Proposed Standard_.
Don't be surprised if a particular standard doesn't progress from
Proposed Standard to Internet Standard. To become an Internet
Standard, an RFC must have multiple interoperable implementations and
the unused features in the Proposed Standard must be removed; there
are additional requirements listed in BCP 9 (https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/bcp9). Most of the protocols in common use are
Proposed standards and never move forward. This may be because no
one took the time to try to get them to Internet Standard, or some of
the normative references in the standard are still at Proposed
standard, or it may be that everyone found more important things to
do.
6.5 RFCs Other than Standards-Track
As mentioned earlier, not all RFCs are standards. In fact, many
important RFCs are not on the standards track at all. At the time of
writing, there are also categories for Informational, Experimental,
Best Current Practice, and Historical for standards that are no
longer recommended for use. The role of Informational RFCs can be
confusing, and people sometimes refer to them as "standards," when
they are not.
Experimental RFCs are for specifications that are interesting, but
for which it is unclear if there will be widespread deployment, or if
they will scale to work after such deployment. That is, a
specification might solve a problem, but there might not be IETF
consensus that the problem is worth solving or that the specification
is complete enough to address the problem. Experimental RFCs are
also used to get people to experiment with a technology that looks
like it might be standards-track material, but for which there are
still unanswered questions.
The IESG has created guidelines
(https://www.ietf.org/standards/process/informational-vs-
experimental/) that can help choose between Informational and
Experimental classification. This is a short informal read, and if
are not sure where your document fits, it is worth reading.
Finally, there are two sub-series of RFCs: Best Current Practice
(BCP) and Internet Standards (STD). BCP describes the application of
various technologies in the Internet, and are also commonly used to
document the many parts of the IETF process. The STD sub-series was
created to identify RFCs that do in fact specify Internet standards.
These are an example of the aphorism that everything in computer
science can be solved by a layer of indirection. For example, a
single BCP can refer to one or more RFCs, and the specific RFCs can
change such as when a new version of a protocol is published.
Likewise, some STDs are actually sets of more than one RFC, and the
"standard" designation applies to the whole set of documents.
7 How to Contribute to the IETF
7.1 What You Can Do
*Read:* Review the Internet-Drafts in your area of expertise and
comment on them in the Working Groups. Participate in the discussion
in a friendly, helpful fashion, with the goal being the best Internet
standards possible. Listen much more than you speak. If you
disagree, debate the technical issues: never attack the people.
*Implement:* Write programs that use the current Internet standards.
The standards aren't worth much unless they are available to Internet
users. Implement even the "minor" standards, since they will become
less minor if they appear in more software. Report any problems you
find with the standards to the appropriate Working Group so that the
standard can be clarified in later revisions. Remember the tenet,
"rough consensus and running code," so you can help support the
standards you want to become more widespread by creating more running
code. You can help the development of protocols before they become
standards by implementing I-Ds (but not doing wide-spread deployment)
to ensure that the authors have done a good job. If you find errors
or omissions, offer improvements based on your implementation
experience. A great way to get involved in this is by participating
in the Hackathons.
*Write:* Edit or co-author Internet-Drafts in your area of expertise.
Do this for the benefit of the Internet community, not to get your
name (or, even worse, your company's name) on a document. Draft
authors receive kinds of technical (and, sadly, sometimes personal)
criticism. Take the technical comments with equanimity and use it to
improve your draft in order to produce the best and most
interoperable standard, and ignore the personal ones.
7.2 What Your Company Can Do
*Share:* Avoid proprietary standards. If you are an implementor,
exhibit a strong preference for IETF standards. If the IETF
standards aren't as good as the proprietary standards, work to make
the IETF standards better. If you're a purchaser, avoid products
that use proprietary standards that compete with the open standards
of the IETF and tell the vendors that you are doing so.
*Open Up:* If your company owns a patent that is used in an IETF
standard, convince the company to make the patent available at no
cost to anyone who is implementing the standard. Patents have
previously caused many serious problems for Internet standards
because they prevent some companies from being able to freely
implement them. Fortunately, many companies have generously offered
unlimited licenses for particular patents in order to help the IETF
standards flourish. These companies are usually rewarded with
positive publicity for the fact that they are not as greedy or short-
sighted as other patent-holders.
*Support:* The IETF has sponsorship opportunities
(https://ietf.org/about/donors/) and an endowment
(https://www.ietf.org/endowment/donate-ietf-endowment/) which can
also take individual-sized donations. Become a member of ISOC. Urge
any company that has benefited from the Internet to contribute, since
this has the greatest financial benefit for the group. It will, of
course, also benefit the Internet as a whole.
8 IETF and the Outside World
While some IETF participants would like to think otherwise, the IETF
does not exist in a standards vacuum. This section discusses two
important groups.
8.1 IETF and Other SDOs
There are many other standards organizations whose decisions affect
the Internet. Some of them ignored the Internet for a long time and
now want to get a piece of the action. In general, the IETF tries to
have cordial relationships with other SDOs. This isn't always easy,
since they usually have different structures and processes than the
IETF does, and the IETF is mostly run by volunteers who would
probably prefer to write standards rather than meet with
representatives from other bodies. Even so, many SDOs make a great
effort to interact well with the IETF despite the obvious cultural
differences.
As stated in BCP 39 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp39), the IAB
Charter: "Liaisons are kept as informal as possible and must be of
demonstrable value in improving the quality of IETF specifications."
In practice, the IETF prefers liaisons to take place directly at the
WG level, with formal relationships and liaison documents in a backup
role. The best place to check to see whether the IETF has any formal
liaison at all is the list of IETF liaisons
(https://www.ietf.org/about/liaisons).
At the time of this writing, the IETF has around two dozen liaisons.
Some of these liaison tasks fall to the IESG, whereas others fall to
the IAB. Full details about the processes for dealing with other
SDOs can be found in BCP 102 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp102)
and BCP 103 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/bcp103).
8.2 Press Coverage of the IETF
Given that the IETF is one of the best-known bodies that is helping
move the Internet forward, it's natural for the media to cover its
actions. But it can be hard to cover the IETF; a common mistake is
reporting an individual's Internet-Draft as something the IETF is
working on, or that the IETF has approved a new standard when it was
an Informational or Individual RFC. Often, the press is not really
to blame for the problem, as they might have been alerted to the
story by a company trying to get publicity for a protocol, or they
see the latest "controversy" on social media.
Reporters who want to find out about "what the IETF is doing" on a
particular topic would be well-advised to talk to more than one
person who is active on that topic in the IETF, and should probably
try to talk to the WG chair in any case. It's impossible to
determine what will happen with a draft by looking at the draft or
talking to the draft's author. Fortunately, all WGs have archives
that a reporter can look through for recent indications about what
the progress of a draft is; unfortunately, few reporters have the
time or inclination to do this kind of research.
Reporters looking for information about the IETF, or pointers to IETF
participants working on a particular topic relevant to the IETF,
should send a message to media@ietf.org (mailto:media@ietf.org), and
a full page of contacts for a variety of needs is available online
(https://www.ietf.org/contact/). Replies are usually sent within a
day. Even if a direct answer to a particular query is not available,
pointers to resources or people who can provide more information
about a topic are often provided.
Acknowledgements
The next phase of work to welcome new participants to the IETF builds
on and gratefully acknowledges everyone who has contributed to the
Tao, and other efforts to help newcomers to the IETF become engaged
and productive participants.
We acknowledge all of the past "Tao of the IETF" editors:
* Gary Scott Malkin
* Susan R. Harris
* Paul Hoffman
* Kathleen Moriarty
* Niels ten Oever
We also acknowledge all the work of the translators that made the Tao
accessible to many different audiences.
Finally, we also want to acknowledge the work of countless
contributors over the years.
Authors' Addresses
Niels ten Oever
University of Amsterdam
Email: mail@nielstenoever.net
Greg Wood
IETF Administration LLC
Email: ghwood@staff.ietf.org
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