Carsten Borman (T2TRG Chair)
Jenny Bui (IETF Secretariat)
Reese Enghardt (ICCRG Chair)
Liz Flynn (IETF Secretariat)
Kurtis Heimerl (GAIA Chair)
Dirk Kutscher (ICNRG/DINRG Chair)
Allison Mankin (At-Large Member)
Colin Perkins (IRTF Chair)
Melinda Shore (At-Large Member)
Dave Oran (ICNRG Chair)
Lixia Zhang (DINRG Chair)
(Kurtis from the chat:
I would like to add a discussion on guest passes to the agenda, we're always trying to figure that out at GAIA)
The minutes from the May 28,2024 teleconference have been approved.
o Melinda to draft text for guidance to IRTF document shepherds
Melinda mentions that this is in progress, and will get posted in a few days. Melinda also mentions that she is guessing about the content and that is hopeful that everything she gets wrong will be corrected by somebody else.
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o draft-irtf-cfrg-aead-properties
o draft-irtf-nmrg-green-ps
o draft-fluhrer-lms-more-parm-sets
o draft-irtf-iccrg-rledbat
o draft-irtf-cfrg-opaque
Colin mentions that a couple of these documents are coming to the IRSG soon. The NMRG Green Problem Statement is just waiting for confirmation from the authors about the IPR disclosures and then it will come to the IRSG. The lms-more-parm-set and CFRG is ready to come to the IRSG, currently just waiting for Colin to send the announcement. We will need reviewers for those two anytime now. There was an update on draft-irtf-iccrg-rledbat recently, and is ready for Colin to review. Colin asks Reese to confirm that on the list and to make sure that everyone is on the same page then Colin will do his review and get it moving. There will be at least two, possibly three coming to the IRSG for review.
Colin plans to submit an update before the Vancouver draft deadline. There’s some very small nits that Dhruv from the IAB found, and Colin thinks there are still a couple of nits from the last time the document was discussed, but thinks that it’s basically done. Colin thinks that the that version when he submits it will be ready for Last Call and approval.
Colin mostly wanted to discuss how we go about doing the approval for this document. The usually IRTF document approval process is all set up around approving documents that come out the Research Groups, Colin then takes a quick look at them to make sure all the sort of formal processes are met, then one of the IRSG members does a detailed editorial review, then we ballot on the document and approve it.
Colin thinks that makes sense for things coming out the Research Groups, what Colin is trying to decide is whether we should try and follow broadly the same process for this document, excepting that it’s not coming of one of the RGs, but with a wider Last Call, or if we need to follow some other process.
What Colin suggests is that we basically follow something like the usual IRTF IRSG document approval process. Colin will prepare the draft, and an IRTF wide Last Call announcement and circulate it to the IRSG for approval. We can make sure everyone is happy with the way Colin is phrasing that.
Once the -03 update of the Code of Conduct is submitted, Colin will email the IRSG to see if there are any objections to issuing that IRTF wide Last Call, and if there are, then we can discuss, but if not then Colin will issue an IRTF wide Last Call for that draft, probably to conclude at the end of Vancouver IETF meeting. Colin will do that by emailing IRTF announce and also sending a copy to all of the Research Groups lists. Colin will also mention it in the IRTF open meeting in Vancouver, and possibly in the plenary. Colin will copy the IAB and possibly the IESG for their input as well.
In parallel to that, he will ask one of the IRSG members to do a detailed editorial review and make sure there’s nothing that got missed there. That hopefully will solicit some comments. If people agree with it, we can move forward. If there are any objections, and hopefully there won’t be too many, we can discuss the objections and decide how to proceed and then assuming there’s no significant comments we can move forward and ballot in the usual sort of way.
In terms of ballots, Colin doesn’t see anything in the RFCs that defines how we ballot on approved documents. The Datracker currently requires two Yes ballots but that seems low for this sort of IRTF wide process document. Colin thinks we need to decide if everyone thinks two Yes ballots is enough or whether we should require a Yes or No Objection from all the IRSG members or from a majority or from other subset. We should ballot on it and if everyone approves it, it passes the ballot then we can send it off for publication, and if not we can discuss how to proceed.
Does anyone have views or opinions on this process?
Lixia replies that that sounds good to her.
Melinda also thinks that sounds fine. Melinda then asks if Colin expects this to be a consensus document? Melinda adds that Colin kind of answered that when he talked about the balloting. It seems like folks here are generally comfortable with it, but there may be concerns expressed from the usual quarters and Melinda thinks under the circumstances having an established process and getting it out there might be a good thing.
Colin responds that we don’t have an established process in the RFCs which is why he wanted to chat with people here. When the IAB approves documents, it tries to approve with unanimity or no objections most of the time, they do have a defined process for a certain number of objections before they approve. We don’t have any such process, which is why Colin wanted to ask how much of the IRSG do we want to vote and what level of descent do we think is reasonable here? Because two Yes ballots and no responses from everyone else seems not much for this type of document. Do we require all the IRSG members to vote? Do we require everyone to say yes or no objection?
Melinda adds that our history with doing consensus processes is a little bit fraught, and this is a fundamental question about the IETF, is doing consensus with people who are not equally committed to the process itself tends to be unsuccessful. It should be a complicated question but it is. It also seems requiring a majority or requiring two thirds seems arbitrary.
(Dirk from the chat: “some informed interest”)
Colin then asks what did Dirk mean by some informed interest?
Dirk replies it could be a critical mass of people who are actually interested and like to see this published, but isn’t sure how to nail this down completely.
Colin mentions that getting everyone to vote certainly seems challenging, we may be able to get a majority to vote, but if we get two thirds voting and a third not responding from the IRSG, is that enough?
Dirk thinks what Lixia said is probably OK, rough consensus versus majority vote.
Melinda replied that that is not consensus but maybe rough consensus is the right thing if there are no substantive objections, if there are no unaddressed serious objections then we can go forward.
Colin then asks how do we make that call? Normally, Colin would make that call but he is the author of the document.
Dirk then says, that is what he meant by some informed interest, maybe it’s not enough if nobody objects so you may want to have a little more support.
Colin thinks that no objections from everybody is a bit weak for this type of document. One approach might be to pull in the IAB Chair or someone to engage a consensus since Colin is the author of the document. Alternatively, we can ballot and see if we can come to an agreement that way. Colin thinks that there should be a written and minuted process before starting the approval process. Colin then asks how about we say yes or no objection from two thirds of the IRSG as a starting point?
Melinda responds that she doesn’t really love it, but can live with it.
(Kurtis from chat: seems fine, this doesn't seem overly contentious from here)
Colin responds to Kurtis, and agrees that it doesn’t seem overly contentious in the IRSG, his concerned is that someone in the community finds this deeply offensive for whatever reason and comes with a long stream of objections and we then have to decide whether we consider those objections sufficient to stop the process so whether we say that we need to judge they’re in the rough. We have had some difficulties with process documents in the past.
Kurtis says that he probably is missing a lot of that context.
Colin sums it up by saying that it seems like no one greatly objects to a Yes or No Objection ballot from two thirds of the IRSG. Colin will write up a draft Last Call message to circulate and circulate the proposal by email so those who are not here can have a look at it, and if people could then respond to say whether they agree with thoughts that would be useful then we can document it.
(Reese from chat: Fine with me. Obviously adding the "at least two yes")
Colin agrees that adding at least two Yes ballots makes sense. Colin proposes to send this to the IAB to get comments then asks the group if they think he should also send it to the IESG at the time of Last Call or just for the conflict review at the end?
Melinda thinks the conflict review is sufficient because that’s what that is for.
Colin agrees, and says that is probably the way he would lean. Roman will also get it when Colin sends it to the IAB so if there are strong comments, he will let us know if he has strong opinions. Colin says that he has everything he needs for this one. He will write up a draft of what he will say in the Last Call announcement and send a concrete proposal for how we’re going to ballot on this, how we’re going to do this to the IRSG mailing list, and then if people can responds with agreements or disagreements, we can get that documented and minuted before we move ahead with Last Call.
Colin mentions that this came from the IESG agenda to approve last week or the week before, and they have asked us for approval for this. The reason being that it updates RFC 7116, which is an IRTF stream document that DTNRG published a few years back and that the IRTF RFC defined a registry for some sort of DTN protocol. The IETF working group in the space is now updating that registry and changing the format of the registry slightly, and extending it since it’s actually being used. Colin feels that we should let the IETF extend this and have no objections to this, but would like to know if other people have opinions on that.
Colin heard no objections, so we can assume that we’re OK with letting DTNRG update our RFC?
(Carsten from chat: You mean DTN WG)
Colin responds that the DTN working group updates the RFC 7116, which is a DTNRG document from a few years back.
(Lixia from chat: sorry, didn't read, so cannot have objection)
Colin asks, Lixia, do you need more time to look at this or are you happy for us to go ahead?
Lixia responds to just go ahead, she doesn’t think she should hold things back.
Colin continues that there has been an errata on the IRTF RFC 7116 for a few years which he thinks incorporates the errata and adds a bunch of extension code points. At this point, we’re at the no objection stage. Colin asks Jenny if she can pass this message on or should he do it?
Jenny responds that it might be best for the IRTF Chair to send the official note to the working group.
Colin responds that he will send the approval.
Kurtis wanted to check in on the process since GAIA always needs some guest passes since they bring in a lot of speakers from around the world who don’t traditionally engage with the IETF and we need to get them in the front door, often remote or onsite. Kurtis asks where is the status on that? What is the process now?
Colin responds that the process is the same as the last meeting. If you have someone and you just want to get them into a single meeting then email support@ietf.org, copying Colin and say you want a single session pass for that person and the Secretariat can generate an access code they can put into Meetecho which lets them log into just that session. If you want a pass for the entire week then talk to Colin, as he has a number of in person codes to hand out; about 10 for the whole meeting. If they want an online pass for the entire week then they can go onto the IETF website and request a fee waiver option on the registration page.
Kurtis says that sounds good. They have one guy coming in from the University of Victoria, and he might want a single day pass in person. Kurtis guesses a whole week pass is not a bad use of resources in that situation?
Colin says we have passes, so let him know and he can send Kurtis a code.
Kurtis then replies that this is for in person for one day.
Colin says yes, send him an email and he will reply with a magic code.
Lixia chimes in and asks if it’s a single day pass, a single session pass essentially is when you invite the speakers or panelists, Lixia was wondering if it could be simplified? Instead of bothering IETF staff while it’s not that urgent, Lixia was just making a suggestion. RG Chairs could issue a free pass to the invited speakers.
Colin agrees that it would make it easier for the RG Chairs point of view. Colin then says that Jenny could comment, and that his impression is that it’s pretty straightforward for the secretariat.
Jenny responds that the secretariat has to track each code that they’re giving out to what session so that we can send it out to Meetecho to see who needs it. It’s more for just to track who uses these codes last minute.
Colin says that these things are pretty quick to approve, they done it within 10 minutes quite often because they’re often pretty last minute.
(Liz from chat: The secretariat can arrange the single session guest passes earlier though, it doesn't have to be last minute!)
Colin agrees that Liz is right, it doesn’t have to be last minute and is probably better if it’s not last minute, but it can be last minute.
Colin reminds the group about the IRSG dinner in Vancouver will take place on Wednesday after the plenary. Please sign up on the Doodle Poll in the wiki, the wiki also has details of the restaurant. https://wiki.ietf.org/group/irtf/dinners
Colin asks the group if there’s any hot topics or anything people are expecting to be controversial for Vancouver that he should know about?
Colin asks Jenny if there is anything we need to talk about for travel grants?
Jenny responds that everything is going well, all the travel grantees have their visa approved and flights booked.
Colin mentions that for those in the group who have been following the E-Impact program will know that there’s going to be a GREEN BoF at IETF in Vancouver. As that starts spinning off standard’s work, Colin is interested on hearing people’s opinion on what, if anything the IRTF should be doing in the sort of environmental impact / energy saving / green computing space. If people want to talk about that know or if people have any ideas that they want to feedback to Colin over the coming week, he would appreciate people’s input on that.
This seems like something where it might make sense to charter a research group but as the IETF works starts going, we don’t want to take the wind of the IETF’s activities. So if people have ideas or opinions on that, let Colin know.
Allison adds that it would be good to figure out from who comes to the BoF, who are in the more academic research side because there’s probably people who don’t normally come to the IETF but might come for that and who think of themselves as more of researchers. One thing would be to kind of ask that question at the BoF and see who identifies as someone who would be interested in that and keep the rest of us informed on that.
Colin responds that he’s trying to avoid jumping into the BoF too much, he might ask on the list after the BoF has happened. He doesn't want to distract from people moving stuff into the IETF, but seeing who is there and looking over the E-Impact list and seeing who’s been engaging makes a lot of sense.
Allison adds that maybe people who haven’t been coming to us but who have models about power usage and things like that would be good. There have been some workshops on that space too. A lot of it is about identifying people rather than whether we should abstractly do it, is identifying if they’re people who think it’s time to come to IRTF.
Colin agrees that we need the right set of people or it’s going to go nowhere. That is the reason why Colin has been delaying as he doesn't want all the work to come to the IRTF and then nothing happens in the standard space. He’s been a little nervous if we charter a group over the past year or so, that would happen. Colin has been holding off, waiting for the BoF to happen and will see who is still interested.
Allison thinks that makes sense.
Colin adds that if people have other ideas for interesting research groups then let him know. One of the things he will be doing in Vancouver is chatting to the folks who are wanting to do post quantum DNS stuff, who are still keen on a research group. Colin is a little conscious that it’s maybe too small of a topic for an RG, but they certainly seem keen on doing the work.
Melinda asks if she’s looking in the wrong place or is the ANRW program not published yet?
Colin responds that he doesn't think it has been published yet and doesn’t think the website has been updated yet, but we do have a program.
Melinda then responds that it would be good to publish it so people can plan their Tuesday ahead of time.
Colin said he will try to do that this week. There a decent number of talks, it’s a good program this year.