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IETF STEERING GROUP (IESG) REPORT FROM THE IETF MEETING November 20th, 1992 Reported by: Greg Vaudreuil, IESG Secretary This report contains IESG meeting notes, positions and action items. These minutes were compiled by the IETF Secretariat which is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NCR 8820945. For more information please contact the IESG Secretary. ATTENDEES --------- Almquist, Philip / Consultant Borman, David / Cray Research Crocker, Dave / TBO Crocker, Steve / TIS Coya, Steve / CNRI Gross, Philip / ANS Hinden, Robert / SUN Hobby, Russ / UC-DAVIS Huizer, Erik / SURFnet Knowles, Stev / FTP Software Reynolds, Joyce / ISI Piscitello, Dave/ Bellcore Stockman, Bernard / SUNET/NORDUnet Vaudreuil, Greg / CNRI Regrets Davin, Chuck / Bellcore IAB ATTENDEES Braden, Robert / ISI Cerf, Vinton / CNRI Chapin, Lyman / BBN Huitema, Christian / INRIA Kent/ Stephen / BBN Lauch, Anthony / DEC Leiner, Barry / NASA Postel, Jon / ISI Regrets Braun, Hans-Werner / SDSC Lynch, Daniel / Interop AGENDA ------ 1) Protocol Actions o Telnet Environment Option o Telnet Authentication Options - SPX - Kerberos V4 o String Representation of Distinguished Names o Network Time Protocol o Common OSI Management in the Internet (CMOT) 2) IETF Progress Report 3) IETF Re-organization 4) New IP Review MINUTES ------- 1) Protocol Actions The IESG reviewed the following protocol actions under the new and evolving standards process continuing in the POSISED Working Group. o Telnet Environment Option The IESG reviewed the Telnet Environment option and approved it for Proposed Standard. This option was previously sent to the IAB and was sent back to Working Group for revision. The Working Group has specified an initial set of Operating System independent variables and provided a mechanism for session specific variables. ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Send an IESG approval for the Telnet Authentication Option to the RFC Editor and the IETF. o Telnet Authentication Protocols - Telnet Authentication - SPX - Kerberos V4 The Telnet Working Group has several documents for telnet Authentication. These documents are complete but are expected to be obsolete shortly by a more comprehensive set of authentication/encryption documents. The Working Group requested Experimental status for the current set. In the absence of a Prototype designation, the IESG agreed and approved the documents for Experimental status. ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Request that the RFC Editor publish the Telnet Authentication documents as Experimental Protocols. o String Representation of Distinguished Names The IESG approved the string representation of distinguished names document as a Proposed Standard. This document along with the User Friendly Naming document earlier approved as experimental by the IESG was previously submitted to the IAB as a Proposed Standard. This document is narrower in scope and represents one of several possible human-readable representations suitable for email or business card exchange. Additional comments were received by Steve Kent but the IESG left the decision on whether to incorporate these changes to the current version or the Draft Standard version up to the author. ACTION: After the author either makes additional edits or indicates that current document is complete, send an IESG Approval for the String Representation of Distinguished Name document to the RFC Editor and the IETF. o Network Time Protocol After significant discussion, the IESG concluded that there was inadequate information to elevate the Network Time Protocol to Draft Standard. While there are two implementations for differing platforms, it is not clear that it is possible to implement an independent interoperable implementation from RFC1113. NTP has not been subject to a Working Group review but was reviewed by an independent group of IETF experts before going to Proposed Standard. The IESG will consult again with this group and if necessary form a Working Group. ACTION: Hobby -- Consult with the original panel of reviewers of the NTP specification and determine if there is adequate experience to elevate NTP to Draft Standard. o Common OSI Management in the Internet (CMOT) The CMOT protocol has been a Proposed Standard for two years and there is no indication that there is, or will be in the near term, the necessary level of implementation or experience to elevate the protocol to Draft Standard. The IESG approved moving CMOT off the standards track to Historic. ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Notify the IETF that the IESG has moved CMOT off the standards track. 2) IETF Progress Report Several protocols which were in need of revision or were long expected to be submitted to the IESG were completed at the Washington IETF Meeting. o SMTP Extensions The impasse on the documentation style and all technical issues were resolved. New documents should be submitted to the Internet Drafts and IESG shortly. o IDENT The IDENT specification with character set changes recommended by the IESG was reviewed and accepted by the Working Group. o Dynamic Host Configuration The specifications for the protocol and options were reviewed and accepted by the Working Group. o Privacy Enhanced Mail PEM is now finished and will be submitted to the IESG within a week. Integration with MIME has begun and this work is intended to progress independently. 3) IETF Re-Organization The IESG discussed specific points of the POISED proposal for re-organization of the IETF/IESG/IAB relationship. o IESG Selection. The proposal for selection of IESG members was a discussed. Two specific concerns were raised, attention to the cooperative spirit of the IESG in selection new members and continuity in the technical management. The IESG affirmed the proposals for the nomination committee to seek guidance from the IESG in selecting new members. Further, the IESG decided that IESG positions should be put up for re-affirmation, not individual members. This is especially important in large area with co-area directors. It was felt that only one of the Directors should be put up for re-affirmation at a time. The IESG periodically reviews its operations and re-organizes areas to reflect new priorities and workloads. The integration of OSI Working Groups into other IESG Areas is one such re-organization. It was agreed that the IESG should remain free to pursue such re-organization with the understanding that any new IESG positions will be subject to the normal nomination process. Five of the six members needed to be re-affirmed volunteered, Dave Piscitello, Dave Crocker, Dave Borman, Stev Knowles, and Phill Gross. o IESG Workload The IESG and IAB agreed to begin operating under the current proposal for IESG final approval of standards. This will entail a greater workload on the IESG with no immediate increase in either IESG membership or secretariat support. The formation of directorates, bodies of experts in a specific area who can aid the Area Director in the review of protocols and mentoring of Working Groups are now more critical. IESG meetings will need to become more focused on protocol standardization and in-depth review of architectural issues. The IESG discussed off-loading the IETF chairman by assigning responsibility for meeting planning, and the technical presentation program to the Executive Director. To accomplish this, the IESG discussed the creation of a "facilitator" a non-technical participant who can manage the agenda and steer the group toward consensus. Steve Coya as the Executive Director of the IETF was named as the obvious choice. o Process Changes The Poised proposal will result in many changes. Several of these were accepted by the IESG and IAB for immediate implementation. - The IESG will now make decisions on standards track protocols starting immediately. Protocols on the IAB's plate will continue through the previous process. - RFC 1310 will be updated. Steve Coya was assigned the task of serving as editor for the IESG update of this document. ACTION: Coya, Dcrocker -- Revise RFC 1310 to reflect the changes in the IESG/IAB structure. It is hoped that a solid cut can be made by the December 10th ISOC Trustees meeting. - The IESG, i.e., Steve Coya, now has responsibility for reporting standardization progress in the Internet Monthly Report and the Internet Society News. - Area Directors need explicit guidelines for Working Group Chairman and Area Directorates. A revised Working Group guidelines incorporating the information from Erik Huizer's OSI area guidelines will be produced. ACTION: Huizer -- Revise the Guidelines to Working Group chairman to offer more explicit guidance and to define the role of the IESG Area Director in terms of Working Group management. - The IESG needs to write a new charter for itself under the IAB. The IAB needs to revise its charter to reflect new duties. o Outstanding Concerns With the IAB, the IESG took an round-robin survey to identify the outstanding areas of concern with the Poised proposal. The following concerns were identified. The professionalism of the IAB/IESG is valuable and must be protected. The nominating committed must be able to work in confidence in considering personnel. Fear of recall petitions may make members reluctant to tackle hard problems. IESG members serve as technical members but are responsible for management of the IETF work and need to be selected with an eye to both roles. The IESG relies upon a close collegial relationship for coordinating technical work and the nominating committee needs the input of existing members to determine if new members can work within the IESG. Further, the replacement of 1/2 of the IESG per vote must be structured in such a way that the area continuity can be maintained, likely by placing only one of co-area directors up for re-nomination per period. IESG workload will increase. In the short term progress is likely to get slower, not faster. The role of the IAB as appeals board needs to be better defined. The process framework needs to be legally defensible but not be over-defined to the point of OSI-fication. 4) New IP Review At this IETF meeting the several proposals for the next IP were presented and discussed. The field of choices appears to have narrowed by attrition to two, CLNP and SIP/IPAE. There were many viewpoints explored on the wisdom of choosing a single choice with the a general consensus that it is better for the IESG/IAB to lead towards a choice by specifying increasingly higher hurdles and setting firm criteria for the proposals than to pick a single protocol. This view towards community decision making results from an understanding that any meaningful decision by the IAB/IESG would have to be made early, before a substantial investment in implementation, and hence before firm experience is gathered. Experience and the pressure of competition will result in stronger proposals which reflect implementation and transition experience. Strong dissenters from this view charge that the costs of parallel tracks are too great and that a decision, even if it is not the best of the contenders will better conserve resources for faster deployment. The IESG discussed and came to the conclusion that a decision can be made, but only if there is community consensus that a decision needs to be made. ACTION: Knowles, Almquist -- Write a draft statement to be sent to the IETF mailing list inquiring about the desire to make a decision on the next IP. Appendix -- Action Items ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Send an IESG approval for the Telnet Authentication Option to the RFC Editor and the IETF. ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Request that the RFC Editor publish the Telnet Authentication documents as Experimental Protocols. ACTION: After the author either makes additional edits or indicates that current document is complete, send an IESG Approval for the String Representation of Distinguished Name document to the RFC Editor and the IETF. ACTION: Hobby -- Consult with the original panel of reviewers of the NTP specification and determine if there is adequate experience to elevate NTP to Draft Standard. ACTION: Vaudreuil -- Notify the IETF that the IESG has moved CMOT off the standards track. ACTION: Coya, Dcrocker -- Revise RFC 1310 to reflect the changes in the IESG/IAB structure. It is hoped that a solid cut can be made by the December 10th ISOC Trustees meeting. ACTION: Knowles, Almquist -- Write a draft statement to be sent to the IETF mailing list inquiring about the desire to make a decision on the next IP. ACTION: Huizer -- Revise the Guidelines to Working Group chairman to offer more explicit guidance and to define the role of the IESG Area Director in terms of Working Group management.