Skip to main content

Requirements for Remote Participation Services for the IETF
draft-ietf-genarea-rps-reqs-03

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Author Paul E. Hoffman
Last updated 2012-03-09
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Formats
Additional resources
Stream WG state WG Document
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state I-D Exists
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-ietf-genarea-rps-reqs-03
Network Working Group                                         P. Hoffman
Internet-Draft                                            VPN Consortium
Intended status: Informational                             March 9, 2012
Expires: September 10, 2012

      Requirements for  Remote Participation Services for the IETF
                     draft-ietf-genarea-rps-reqs-03

Abstract

   The IETF has provided some tools for remote participation in its
   activities for many years, and some IETF participants have also used
   their own tools when they felt the need arise.  The IETF now wishes
   to support enhanced remote participation that is as seamless as
   possible, approaching the quality of direct physical attendance for
   the various roles, including chair, presenter and simple attendee.
   Before deploying the new tools and services needed for this enhanced
   remote participation, the requirements for such tools and services
   must be defined.  This document is meant to be that definition.

Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on September 10, 2012.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012               [Page 1]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012               [Page 2]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     1.1.  About This Document  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   2.  Scenarios Required to be Supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   3.  Interactions with Current RPS Tools Used by the IETF . . . . .  8
     3.1.  Technologies Currently Used at Regular IETF Meetings . . .  8
     3.2.  Locating the Meeting Information . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
       3.2.1.  Audio  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
       3.2.2.  Instant Messaging  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       3.2.3.  Slides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     3.3.  Remote Participation at IETF Meetings  . . . . . . . . . . 10
       3.3.1.  Remotely Speaking at the Mic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       3.3.2.  Remotely Presenting  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       3.3.3.  Floor Control  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     3.4.  Remote Participation at IETF Interim WG Meetings . . . . . 14
       3.4.1.  Face-to-Face Interim Meetings  . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
       3.4.2.  Virtual Interim Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   4.  Requirements for Supporting Remote Participation in
       Regular IETF Meetings  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     4.1.  Registration for Remote Participation  . . . . . . . . . . 17
     4.2.  Audio  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       4.2.1.  IM-to-Mic Relay of Comments from Remote
               Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       4.2.2.  Audio from Remote Participants to the Room . . . . . . 19
     4.3.  Video  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
       4.3.1.  Video from the Room to Remote Participants . . . . . . 21
       4.3.2.  Video from Remote Participants to the Room . . . . . . 22
     4.4.  Instant Messaging  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
     4.5.  Slide Presentations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     4.6.  Slide Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     4.7.  Shared Document Editing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     4.8.  Archiving  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
     4.9.  Transcription  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
     4.10. Polling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
     4.11. Plenaries  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
     4.12. Use by IETF Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
     4.13. Additional Requirements for Remote Participation . . . . . 27
   5.  Requirements for Supporting Remote Participation in
       Interim Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     5.1.  Requirements for Supporting Remote Participation in
           Face-to-Face  Interim Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     5.2.  Requirements for Supporting All-Remote Interim Meetings  . 29
   6.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
   7.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
   8.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
   9.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
   Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012               [Page 3]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

1.  Introduction

   There are two types of participants at the three-times-a-year IETF
   meetings: the people who are physically at the meeting ("local
   attendees") and people that are not physically at the meeting but are
   following the meeting online ("remote attendees").  For more than a
   decade, the IETF has tried to make it easier for remote attendees to
   participate in its face-to-face meetings in a meaningful fashion by
   providing supported and experimental online services.

   At the same time, many IETF Working Groups (WGs) have started to have
   interim meetings that are scheduled between the regular IETF
   meetings; these are described (briefly) in [RFC2418].  Some of these
   interim meetings are face-to-face meetings with remote attendees,
   while other interim meetings only take place over the Internet or on
   the phone; the latter type of meeting is often called a "virtual
   interim".  There are also interim meetings that do not support remote
   participation.

   The IETF's current remote participation system ("RPS") for the
   official three-times-a-year meetings ("regular IETF meetings")
   consists of a real-time audio stream carried over HTTP, textual
   instant messaging (IM) carried over Jabber, as well as experimental
   support for two integrated tools, WebEx and Meetecho.  Some WGs
   employ ad-hoc tools such as Skype.  For interim WG meetings, the IETF
   provides access to WebEx.  The IETF's leadership regularly uses
   telephone, Jabber, and WebEx for the many meetings that happen
   between the IETF meetings.

   The IETF wants to improve the tools provided in the RPS for many
   reasons.

   o  A better RPS would allow more people to participate in regular
      IETF meetings more effectively, hopefully leading to better WG
      outcomes such as faster progression of WG documents, more
      reviewers of WG documents, and more discussion of changes needed
      to those documents during the WG process.  There are many people
      who are active in many WGs who rarely or never come to IETF
      meetings; good RPS tools could allow these people to contribute
      significantly during meetings like they do on the mailing lists.

   o  The improved RPS tools would also be used outside IETF meetings.
      They would be available to WGs for interim meetings, both to allow
      remote participation in face-to-face interims as well as to
      facilitate "virtual interims" where none of the participants are
      in the same location.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012               [Page 4]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   o  The plenary sessions of IETF meetings currently only allow remote
      attendees to hear the speakers and read a real-time transcript.
      Improved RPS tools would allow remote attendees to see the
      speakers and be able to comment at the mics like people in the
      room.

   o  The IETF leadership (the IAB, IESG, IAOC, and probably others)
      could use the new tools to help make their own meetings more
      effective.

1.1.  About This Document

   The purpose of this document is to develop the requirements and
   functional specifications for the IETF's RPS that enables enhanced
   remote participation in meeting sessions.  The RPS described in this
   document might augment and/or replace the current set of IETF RPS
   tools.  The intention is for the experience of remote attendees to
   rival those of local attendees.

   After the tools that meet the requirements in this document are
   deployed, there will probably be a change in the participation in
   regular IETF meetings.

   o  Some people who would make an effort to come to a particular IETF
      meeting might be more likely to attend remotely.  Such a change
      will reduce the number of local attendees, which will both reduce
      the amount that the IETF makes from registration fees and makes
      the informal gatherings during the IETF meeting less valuable
      because of the reduced networking effects.

   o  People who are active on WG mailing lists but not in the regular
      meetings are more likely to participate in the meetings remotely.
      Such a change might cause more effective meetings for WGs that are
      lagging in energy because more people will participate.  WG
      meetings that already have lots of participants will probably
      become busier.  Presentations on documents where none of the
      authors come to regular IETF meetings will be much more likely to
      be given by the authors instead of by their proxies.

   o  If the tools make regular IETF meetings and interim meetings much
      more effective, the IETF might be able to reduce the number of
      regular meetings each year from three to two.  This would
      significantly reduce the impact of travel on regular IETF
      participants and make meeting planning much easier, but could
      significantly change the finances for the IETF and also reduce the
      amount of side-meeting value per year for participants.

   Note that some of the requirements in this document for particular

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012               [Page 5]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   functionality may not be desired by all WG chairs.  The tools
   proposed will not force a particular WG to use all the features
   proposed.

   This document is being produced at the request of the IAOC.  The
   request for proposals that led to this document can be found at
   [RPS-RFP].  This document does not specify specific technologies or
   instantiations of tools.  Instead, it is meant to be used as a guide
   for the IAOC to later contract the development and deployment of the
   tools described here.

   Requirements in this document are numbered, such as "**Requirement
   03-00**".  In the IETF, there is an active (and never-ending) debate
   about what is a "requirement".  In the context of this document, a
   requirement is something that must appear in one of the iterations of
   the eventual RPS in order to support the mission of enabling useful
   remote participation in meeting sessions.

   Later versions of this document will differentiate between
   requirements that must be met by the first version of the RPS and
   requirements that must be met by future versions of the RPS.  For
   example, a requirement for the first version of the RPS might be
   "chairs must be able to specify which remote attendee can speak
   next", whereas a requirement for a later version of the RPS might be
   "chairs must be able to perform many or all chair duties at a regular
   IETF meeting while participating remotely". [[[ TODO: come up with a
   way to differentiate these two and start marking them as such. ]]]

   A functional specification is an approach to meeting one or more
   requirement.  For example, a requirement might be "chairs must be
   able to specify which remote attendee can speak next" and a
   function's specification associated with that requirement might be
   "floor control can be done through a stand-alone application or web
   form".  Functional specifications are called out in this document as
   "**Functional spec 03-00**".

   The requirements and functional specifications covered in this
   document apply almost exclusively to tools and services that are used
   for remote participation in real-time meetings.  The document does
   not cover the many other tools used by WGs for non-real-time
   communication such as mailing lists, issue trackers, document flow
   control systems, and so on.  Many of the non-real-time tools are also
   being improved over time, but they are not the subject of this
   document.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012               [Page 6]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   This document is being discussed on the vmeet@ietf.org mailing list.
   See <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/vmeet> for more
   information.

2.  Scenarios Required to be Supported

   The are many IETF-related activities that can be aided by remote
   participation tools.  The scenarios in which the RPS described in
   this document is expected to be used are:

   o  WG sessions at regular IETF meetings -- A typical regular IETF
      meeting has about 150 sessions, with up to 8 of those sessions
      happening at the same time.  A session might have between 20 and
      200 local attendees in the room, and might have only a few or many
      dozens of remote attendees.  WG sessions typically have one to
      three co-chairs at the front of the room and a series of
      individuals who come to the front to present; some presentations
      are made by small panels.

   o  Plenaries at regular IETF meetings -- There are usually two
      plenaries at a regular IETF meeting, with on-site attendance of
      about 700 local attendees and dozens of remote attendees.  There
      are from 1 to 20 presenters; presentations may be made by multiple
      people.

   o  Face-to-face interim WG meetings -- Between regular IETF meetings,
      some WGs hold interim meetings where participants get together at
      a site (often a company's meeting room, but sometimes a meeting
      room rented at a hotel).  At such meetings, there are between a
      handful and a few dozen local attendees and a similar number of
      remote attendees.  Presentations are common.

   o  Virtual interim WG meetings -- Between regular IETF meetings, some
      WGs hold virtual interim meetings where there are no local
      attendees because there is no central meeting location.  There are
      between a handful and a few dozen attendees.  Presentations are
      common.

   o  IETF leadership meetings -- The IETF leadership (the IESG, IAOC,
      IAB, and probably others) have periodic virtual meetings, usually
      with presentations.  These groups also meet at the regular IETF
      meetings, and sometimes have remote attendees at those meetings
      (such as members who cannot attend the IETF meeting or presenters
      who are not part of the leadership group).

   [[[ TODO: Count the number of f2f and virtual interims from the past
   few years. ]]]

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012               [Page 7]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

3.  Interactions with Current RPS Tools Used by the IETF

   Users' experience with the current IETF tools vary widely.  Some
   participants think the tools are fine and are grateful that they
   exist.  Other participants find them barely acceptable because they
   have used better tools in other environments.  Often, local attendees
   mostly forget that the remote attendees are participating until one
   gets something said at the mic.  Local attendees don't have a feeling
   for how many remote attendees are just listening like most of the
   local attendees.

   The variety of current experiences can help inform the discussion of
   how to improve the tools.  The requirements here are derived from the
   current tools; later sections derive requirements from needs that are
   not at all met by the current tools.

   The IETF has years of experience with the two primary tools used at
   its regular meetings (Jabber for IM and streaming audio).  This
   section discusses some of the reactions of users -- those in the
   meetings and those who have participated remotely -- to the current
   tools.

3.1.  Technologies Currently Used at Regular IETF Meetings

   There are three tools that are used by remote attendees for WG
   participation at regular IETF meetings: real-time audio, instant
   messaging, and slides.

   For the past few years, the IETF has used audio streamed over HTTP
   over TCP.  TCP is often buffered at many places between (and in) the
   origination in the IETF meeting venue and the users' computer.  At
   recent meetings, delays of around 30 seconds have been recorded, with
   minimum delays typically being five seconds.  This delay is caused by
   buffering at the hop-by-hop ISPs and in the remote attendee's
   computer.  At recent IETF meetings, remote attendance is almost
   always less than 10% of local attendance, and is often less than 5%.
   (There are more remote attendees when the IETF meeting is in the
   U.S.) Each stream is represented by an MP3 playlist (sometimes called
   an "m3u file").

   The IETF long ago standardized on Jabber / XMPP ([RFC6120],
   [RFC6121], and others) for instant messaging used within the IETF.
   Jabber rooms (formally called "multi-user conferences" or "MUCs")
   exist for every WG, and those rooms are live all the time, not just
   during regular IETF meetings.  There are also stable Jabber rooms for
   the plenaries and certain other activities.  BoFs are usually
   assigned Jabber rooms before a regular meeting.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012               [Page 8]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   Presentation slides normally are stored either as PDFs or in one of
   Microsoft's formats for PowerPoint.  They are projected on a local
   screen from someone's laptop computer.

   There has been experience at recent meetings with two tools, WebEx
   and Meetecho, which are supported experimentally by the IETF.  Each
   tool was used by a handful of WGs with mixed success.  The tools
   require remote attendees to use specific clients, and installation of
   those clients caused problems for some people.  On the other hand,
   the tools have much more robust meeting control features, and
   participants appreciated the real-time showing of slides during
   presentations.

3.2.  Locating the Meeting Information

   Finding information for the real-time audio, instant messaging, and
   slides for an upcoming or current regular meeting is complicated by
   that information being in many different locations on the IETF web
   site, and the fact that the relevant URLs can change before and even
   during the meeting.  Further, a WG chair might copy the latest
   information and send it to the WG mailing list, but there can be
   later changes.  Experienced remote attendees have gotten used to
   checking just before the meeting itself, but even that does not
   always guarantee the correct information.

   Currently, the meeting information appears in two different agendas:

   o  The official agenda on the IETF Datatracker includes links to
      venue maps, WG charters, agendas, and Internet-Drafts.  For
      example, see
      <https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/82/agenda.html>.

   o  The unofficial "tools-style agenda" includes the same links as the
      official agenda plus links to the presentations, audio, minutes,
      Jabber room, and Jabber logs 9represnted as small icons).  For
      example, see <http://tools.ietf.org/agenda/82/>.

3.2.1.  Audio

   The URL for the audio stream for a WG or BoF meeting is based on the
   room that the meeting is in.  The audio streams are announced on the
   general IETF mailing list (ietf@ietf.org) before each meeting.

   A common complaint is that when a WG meeting moves to a different
   room, remote users need to know about the move so that they can use
   the proper URL to hear the audio stream.  The room changes are often,
   but not always, announced on WG mailing lists; when they are not
   announced, there is no easy way for a remote attendee to find out

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012               [Page 9]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   which audio stream they should be listening to.  Sometimes, room
   changes happen just as a WG meeting is starting, making it nearly
   impossible for a remote attendee to know about the change in streams.

3.2.2.  Instant Messaging

   The Jabber rooms used by WGs and BoFs do not change between IETF
   meetings, so finding the right Jabber room is relatively easy.  Some
   Jabber clients have odd interfaces for joining Jabber rooms, and this
   can cause some problems; even though participants can test their
   Jabber clients before a meeting, there still seems to be some who
   need help just before a WG meeting.  There are sometimes problems
   with people joining Jabber rooms; in these cases, the participant
   needs to find someone already in the Jabber room to invite them to
   the discussion.

3.2.3.  Slides

   Slides are available from the meeting materials page.  Many, but
   certainly not all, local and remote attendees know how to find the
   meeting materials page.

   It has become fairly common for presenters to not have their
   presentations available for distribution until just before the WG
   meeting.  Because materials are uploaded by the WG chairs, this often
   causes the beginning of WG meetings to be a dance involving
   presenters giving the chairs their slides, followed by chairs
   uploading the slides to the IETF site, followed by the chairs saying
   "the slides are there now".

3.3.  Remote Participation at IETF Meetings

3.3.1.  Remotely Speaking at the Mic

   In order for a remote attendee to speak at the mic, a local attendee
   must say it for them.  In most WG and BoF meetings, this is done by
   the remote attendee typing into the Jabber room for the meeting, and
   some local attendee going to the mic and repeating what was typed
   into the Jabber room.  Remote attendees often precede what they want
   said at the mic with the string "mic:" to differentiate that from the
   rest of the discussion in the Jabber room.

   This method of participation often works adequately, but there are
   many places where it fails.  The following is a compendium of stories
   from recent IETF meetings and interim face-to-face meetings where
   remotely speaking at the mic didn't work as well as it could have.
   The participants are Chris and Carl (WG co-chairs), Sam (volunteer
   Jabber scribe), Rachel and Robert (remote attendees), Pete

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 10]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   (presenter), and Len and Lee (local attendees).

   o  Robert cannot understand what Pete is saying about slide 5, but
      Sam doesn't get Pete's attention until Pete is already on slide 7
      and Pete doesn't want to go back.

   o  Rachel wants to say something, but Sam's Jabber client has crashed
      and no one else in the Jabber room knows why Sam isn't going to
      the mic.

   o  Robert wants to say something, but Sam is already at the mic
      speaking for Rachel so Sam doesn't see Robert's message until he
      has gotten out of the mic line.

   o  Sam is speaking for Robert, and Rachel wants to comment on what
      Robert said.  Unless Sam reads the message as he is walking back
      to his seat, Rachel doesn't get to speak.

   o  Robert wants to say something at the mic, but Sam is having an
      important side discussion with the AD.

   o  Sam is also the minutes taker, and is too busy at the moment
      catching up with the lively debate at the mic to relay a question
      from Rachel.

   o  Chris thought Carl was watching the Jabber room, but Carl was
      reading the draft that is being discussed.

   o  Chris and Carl start the meeting by asking for volunteers to take
      minutes and be Jabber scribe.  They couldn't find a Jabber scribe,
      and it took a lot of begging to get someone to take minutes, so
      they figured that was the best they could do.

   o  Sam is also a presenter, and Robert has a question about Sam's
      presentation, but Sam is obviously not looking at the Jabber room
      at the time.

   o  Rachel asks a question through Sam, and Pete replies.  Len, who is
      next in line at the mic, starts talking before Sam has a chance to
      see whether or not Rachel has a follow-up question.

   o  Robert makes a point about one of Pete's slides, and Pete responds
      "I don't think you're looking at the right slide" and continues
      with his presentation.  Robert cannot reply in a timely fashion
      due to the lag in the audio channel.

   o  Pete starts his presentation by asking for questions to be held
      until the end.  Robert has a question about slide 5, and is

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 11]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

      waiting until the end of the presentation to post the question in
      the Jabber room.  After slide 7, Len jumps to the mic and
      vehemently disagrees with something that Pete said.  Then Lee gets
      up to respond to Len, and the three of them go at it for a while,
      with Lee getting up again after slide 10.  The presentation ends
      and is over time, so Carl says "we need to move on", so Robert
      never gets to ask his question.

   o  Chris asks "are there any more questions" while Rachel is typing
      furiously, but she doesn't finish before Chris says "I don't see
      anyone, thanks Pete, the next speaker is...".

   o  Rachel comments on Pete's presentation though Sam. Sam doesn't
      understand what Rachel is asking, and Len goes to the mic to
      explain.  However, Len gets his explanation of what Rachel said
      wrong and by the time Pete answers Len's interpretation, Rachel
      gives up.

   o  This is the first time Pete is presenting at an IETF meeting, and
      Robert has the first question, which is relayed through Sam. Pete
      stays silent, not responding the question.  Robert can't see
      Pete's face to know if Pete is just not understanding what he
      asked, is too afraid to answer, is just angry, or something else.

   o  Pete says something incorrect in his presentation, and Len asks
      the folks in the Jabber room about it.  Rachel figures out what
      Pete should have said, and others in the Jabber room agree.  No
      one goes to the mic because Pete has left the topic, but only the
      people watching Jabber know that the presentation was wrong.

   o  Pete says something that the AD sitting at the front of the room
      (not near a mic) doesn't like, and the AD says a few sentences but
      doesn't go to the mic.  The chairs try to repeat what the AD says,
      get it only approximately right, but the remote attendees do not
      hear what really was said and therefore cannot comment
      effectively.

   o  Sam only volunteered to be scribe because no one else would do it,
      and isn't sitting close to the mic, and gets tired of getting up
      and down all the time, and doesn't really agree with Robert on a
      particular issue, so Sam doesn't relay a request from Robert.

   o  Rachel cannot join the Jabber room due to a client or server
      software issue.  She finally finds someone else on Jabber who is
      also in the meeting, and gets them to invite her into the room.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 12]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

3.3.2.  Remotely Presenting

   Some WGs have experimented with remote presentations at regular IETF
   meetings, with quite mixed results.  For some, it works fine: the
   remote presenter speaks, the chair moves the slides forward, and
   questions can be heard easily.  For others, it is a mess: the local
   attendees can't hear the presenter very well, the presenter can't
   hear questions or there is a long delay, and it was not clear when
   the presenter was waiting for input or there was a lag in the sound.

   At a recent meeting that had a remote presenter, a WG had a video
   camera set up at the chairs' desk pointed towards the audience so
   that the presenter could see who was at the mic; this was considered
   to be a great help and a lot friendlier because the presenter could
   address the people at the mic by name.  They also had the presenter's
   head projected on the screen in the room, which led to a lot of jokes
   and discussion of whether seeing the remote presenter caused people
   to pay more attention.

   Remote presenters have commented how difficult it is to set up their
   systems, particularly because they are not sure whether their setup
   is working until the moment they are supposed to be presenting.  Even
   then, the first few minutes of the presentation has a feeling of "is
   this really working?".

   [[[ TODO: More discussion about experiences with remote presenters.
   Include more discussion of where it went well. ]]]

3.3.3.  Floor Control

   Although Section 3.3.1 may seem like it is a bit harsh on WG chairs,
   the current tools do not give them the kind of control over remote
   attendees that they have over local attendees.  The chairs can tell
   what is happening at the mics, but have much less view into what is
   happening on Jabber, even if they are watching the Jabber room.
   Without as much view, they cannot assist the flow of the conversation
   as well.

   o  Carl sees that the Jabber room has an active and useful back-
      channel discussion during Pete's provocative presentation.  Pete
      finishes and asks for questions.  Lee and Len rush to the mic
      line, and it takes Robert a few seconds to get his question into
      the Jabber room and for Sam to go to the mic.  Carl tries to
      prioritize Sam forward in the line, but Len gets upset when he
      does.

   o  Rachel asks a question, but Sam is not going to the mic to relay
      it.  In fact, Sam has pretty much stopped paying attention.  Chris

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 13]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

      cannot do something about the situation without making Sam look
      bad.

   o  Pete has run over time, Robert asks what is supposed to be the
      last question, and Pete doesn't understand what Sam said.  Carl
      cannot tell whether to wait for Robert to rephrase the question or
      whether Robert even heard Pete's response.

   o  In a virtual interim where remote attendees all participate by
      voice, someone can be heard typing / eating / talking loudly to
      someone else.  Carl and Chris try to get that person's attention
      over the audio and Jabber, but to no avail.  The tool being used
      does not have the ability to mute individual participants, so the
      meeting is disrupted until that person finally realizes that he or
      she is not muted.

3.4.  Remote Participation at IETF Interim WG Meetings

3.4.1.  Face-to-Face Interim Meetings

   Many interim meetings are held face-to-face in conference rooms
   supplied by companies active in the IETF (and, much less often, in
   commercial conference facilities such as hotels).  Because these
   facilities are not controlled by the IETF Secretariat, the ability to
   include remote attendees varies widely.  Some facilities can
   distribute the in-room audio over the Internet just fine, while
   others have no or limited abilities to do so.

   For example, a recent face-to-face interim meeting was supposed to be
   open to remote attendees through WebEx, but the sound coming from the
   room was too soft to hear reliably.  Even if a face-to-face interim
   meeting has good facilities for audio and slide presenting, it will
   probably have similar to regular IETF meetings.

3.4.2.  Virtual Interim Meetings

   Because few WGs have virtual interim meetings (those with no face-to-
   face attendees), there is less experience with the tools that are
   commonly used for them.  The IETF has had free use of WebEx for a few
   years, and some WGs have used different tools for audio
   participation.  For example, some virtual interims are held using
   Skype, others with TeamSpeak, and so on.

   So far, the experience with virtual interim meetings has been
   reasonably good, and some people say that it is better than for
   remote attendees at regular IETF meetings and face-to-face interims
   because everyone has the same problems with getting the group's
   attention.  Also, there are no problems getting the in-room audio

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 14]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   into the RPS because all attendees are using their own computers for
   speaking to the group.

   One of the often-debated aspects of virtual interim meetings is what
   time to have them in order to make them available to all
   participants.  Such scheduling of virtual interim meetings is out of
   scope for this document.  However, it is noted that because many
   participants will be attending at different times of day and night,
   no assumption can be made that participants will be at an "office".
   This debate also affects face-to-face interim meetings because the
   meeting hosts normally will schedule the meeting during business
   hours at the host company, but that might be terribly inconvenient
   for some WG members.

   [[[ TODO: More discussion about experiences with virtual interims.
   Focus on differences between the all-in-one systems like WebEx and
   the cobble-together systems where there is an audio feed with no
   floor control plus pre-distributed slideware. ]]]

4.  Requirements for Supporting Remote Participation in Regular IETF
    Meetings

   This section covers the requirements and functional specification for
   effective remote participation in meetings where some members are in
   regular IETF face-to-face meetings.  Some of the requirements in this
   section overlap with those in Section 5, but many are unique to
   meetings that have a large number of attendees physically present.

   There is an assumption in this section that the meeting chairs will
   continue to control the flow of the discussion.  That is, if a
   presenter is speaking and a remote attendee wants to ask a question,
   the request to do so goes to the chair, not to the presenter.  This
   is covered in more detail in Section 4.2.2.1.

   **Requirement 03-01**: The specifications SHOULD rely upon IETF and
   other open standards for all communications and interactions wherever
   possible.

   **Requirement 03-02**: All tools in the RPS SHOULD be able to be run
   on the widest possible array of computers.  The tool may be a stand-
   alone application, from any modern web browser, or from the command
   line, but needs to be available on all of (at least) MacOS version
   10.6 or later, Windows 7 or later, and any common Linux distribution
   produced in 2010 or later.  This also means that the tools MUST NOT
   rely on Adobe Flash to work correctly. [[[ TODO: Do we need to
   include IOS and Android platforms in that list? ]]]

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 15]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   **Requirement 03-03**: Audio, video, instant messaging, and slide
   streams going to and from remote attendees SHOULD be delivered in as
   close to real-time as is practically possible.  A common complaint
   with the current RPS is that the streaming audio can take more than
   10 seconds (and sometimes as much as 30 seconds) to reach the remote
   attendee.  This causes many of the problems listed in Section 3.3.1.

   [[[ TODO: Proposed replacement for this requirement is "Delays MUST
   be less than X milliseconds greater than the network delay to the
   remote attendee."  Two values for X have been proposed: 200 and 500.
   ]]]

   [[[ TODO: A possibly different way to set the requirement is "The
   audio MUST achieve a MOS (Mean Opinion Score) of 3.5 or better."  And
   there should probably be a discussion of a possible equivalent for
   video.  A proposal was "320x240 @ 15fps". ]]]

   **Requirement 03-04**: The outgoing audio, video, and slide streams
   MUST have the same delays so the remote participant does not get
   confused during slide presentations.

   **Requirement 03-05**: All streaming information from the RPS MUST be
   usable over slow Internet connections.  Many remote attendees will be
   in places with limited bandwidth. [[[ TODO: We need to define "slow"
   here, or drop the requirement.]]]

   **Requirement 03-06**: All proposed tools MUST detail the bandwidth
   required for each participant for various levels of participation
   (audio-only, audio and video, and so on).

   [[[ TODO: Is there a requirement for PSTN for audio-only? ]]]

   **Requirement 03-07**: Audible echo in the audio stream MUST be
   damped and/or eliminated by the tools. [[[ TOOD: Proposed
   replacement: the RPS MUST recognize audible echo and automatically
   take measures to reduce it to a level which won't distract listeners.
   ]]]

   **Requirement 03-08**: WG chairs MUST be able to test whether or not
   the tools for their session are working at least 30 minutes before
   the meeting begins (unless, of course, there is already another
   meeting occurring in the room during that time).

   **Requirement 03-09**: There MUST be written operational
   documentation for each RPS tool that is accessible at all times.
   This will help reduce problems where a WG chair is having problems
   during a meeting that is affecting the meeting as a whole.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 16]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   **Requirement 03-10**: There SHOULD be training materials for WG
   chairs in how to use the RPS tools.

4.1.  Registration for Remote Participation

   There has been periodic discussion of whether or not remote attendees
   are bound by the "Note Well" text that local attendees are bound to.
   The core question is which local and remote attendees are
   "contributors" based on the definitions in [BCP78].  By requiring
   registration before participating, remote attendees can be better
   alerted to, and thus hopefully bound to, the requirements of
   contributors.

   The cost for remote attendees to register, if any, is not covered in
   this document but will instead be determined by the IETF at a later
   time.  There are many ideas on the subject (tiered costs for
   different services, no cost at all for the first year, and others),
   but the effects of different cost structures is beyond the scope of
   this document.

   **Requirement 03-11**: All remote attendees MUST register with the
   IETF Secretariat before using any of the RPS tools described here.
   Note that this would be a significant change to the current RPS tools
   in that an unregistered person would not be able to use the IM
   system. [[[ TODO: Should this be split into "unregistered people can
   listen and read, but not contribute"? ]]]

   **Functional spec 03-01**: The RPS MUST have a system where a remote
   attendee can register their name and have that name be used in the
   instant messaging and video systems.  Registration must only need to
   be done once for an entire regular IETF meeting.

   **Requirement 03-12**: A remote attendee may register a nickname that
   will be shown to other attendees during the meeting.  A remote
   attendee must register with a "verified" name with the IETF
   Secretariat.  The nickname will appear in video and instant
   messaging.  [[[TODO: Is this anonymity appropriate in light of the
   "note well" and floor control requirements? ]]]

   **Requirement 03-13**: The RPS tools (particularly the registration
   tool) MUST gracefully handle multiple attendees who have the same
   name.

   **Functional spec 03-02**: To support the "blue sheet" functionality
   for remote attendees, the registration tool SHOULD allow a registered
   user to indicate which sessions he or she attended.  This notations
   SHOULD be allowed for all WG meetings throughout the meeting period.
   The registration system SHOULD remind all registered remote attendees

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 17]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   at the end of the week to update their notations.

4.2.  Audio

   Audio from face-to-face meetings travels in two directions: from the
   room to remote attendees, and from remote attendees to the room.

   A few requirements come from the IETF's current use of audio in
   meetings.  Meeting rooms have many mics: one or two for the chairs,
   one for the presenter, and at least one for other local attendees to
   ask questions.  Plenaries have many more mics, both at the front of
   the room and in the audience.

   **Requirement 03-14**: Remote attendees MUST be able to hear what is
   said by local attendees and chairs at any mic in the meeting.

   Comments on early drafts of this document indicated that the latter
   may not really be a requirement for all participants if IM-to-mic is
   made predictable.  The two options are split below to make the
   discussion clearer.  Note that even if the consensus is towards IM-
   to-mic, remote-to-room might still be required to enable remote
   presenters; in this case, there would probably be little need for
   floor control.  The requirements for audio are expected to be
   important discussion points in future versions of this document.

   [[[ TODO: Should the ability to dial into a meeting stream via POTS
   be a requirement? ]]]

4.2.1.  IM-to-Mic Relay of Comments from Remote Participants

   As described in Section 3.3.1, the current tools support an informal
   method for remote attendees to speak at the mic: in the Jabber room,
   they enter "mic:" before their comment and hope that the designated
   scribe or someone else goes to the mic to relay the comment.  This
   method works, but has significant flaws described in that section.

   **Requirement 03-15**: Relay of messages from IM to the mic MUST
   happen as quickly as if the remote attendee was local.

   **Requirement 03-16**: The person relaying from IM to the mic must be
   available throughout the WG meeting.  This could be facilitated by
   hiring people to attend meetings for the specific purpose of being
   IM-to-mic scribes.

   **Requirement 03-17**: If multiple remote attendees want to comment
   at the same time, the person relaying from IM to the mic MUST be able
   to relay for all of them.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 18]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   Note: during the development of this document, there have been many
   suggestions for how WG chairs can better manage the IM-to-mic
   relaying (for example, with planned pauses, better tracking of the IM
   room, and so on).  Some of those suggestions might turn into
   requirements to be included in this document, but so far most of them
   seem to be really about improving WG chairs, not the RPS tools.

4.2.2.  Audio from Remote Participants to the Room

   Note that the requirements here assume a very large change in the way
   that remote participation will happen.  Instead of a remote attendee
   typing something into the Jabber room that someone will repeat at a
   mic in the room, remote attendees will use their own mics to speak to
   the meeting.

   **Requirement 03-18**: Remote attendees MUST be able to speak
   directly to a meeting without going through a local attendee, and
   have their speaking be heard by local attendees.  (Note that the
   ability to speak is controlled by the chair; see Section 4.2.2.1.)

   **Requirement 03-19**: Local attendees MUST be able to determine
   which remote attendee is speaking.  If the remote attendee is using a
   nickname (see Requirement 03-12), that nickname can be used by the
   remote speaker.

   **Requirement 03-20**: The floor control portion of the RPS MUST give
   a remote attendee who is allowed to speak a clear signal when they
   should and should not speak.

   **Requirement 03-21**: The audio system used by the RPS MUST be able
   to integrate with systems commonly used in the venues used for IETF
   meetings.  IETF meetings happen in venues such as hotels and
   conference centers, most of which have their own audio setups.  The
   IETF Secretariat contracts with those venues for the use of some or
   all of their audio system.  Without such integration, audio from
   remote attendees might not be reliably heard by local participants.

   **Requirement 03-22**: When a remote attendee connects to the audio
   stream to the room, their mic SHOULD start off muted.  This will
   prevent problems such as those common with WebEx where a remote
   attendee doesn't realize that they can be heard.

   **Requirement 03-23**: Remote participants MUST be able to unmute
   themselves; unmuting MUST NOT require interaction from the chair.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 19]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

4.2.2.1.  Floor Control for Chairs for Audio from Remote Attendees

   Newcomers to regular IETF meetings often expect the floor control in
   WG meetings to be fairly straight-forward.  By Tuesday, they might be
   shaking their heads, wondering why some people cut into the mic
   lines, why some people get up to the mics after the chair has closed
   the line, why some people ignore presenters' requests to hold
   questions to the end, and so on.  Mixing remote attendees into this
   social structure will be a daunting task, but one that has been dealt
   with in many remote participation systems.

   It is not yet clear how the set of remote attendees would be treated
   for queueing.  Some tools have each remote attendee being considered
   separately, while others pool all remote attendees into one group.
   This affects the chair knowing and being able to act on the order
   that remote attendees ask to speak.

   Note that, if the remote video to room requirements from
   Section 4.3.2 need to be met, it is very likely that a related
   requirement to those below is that "the audio and video floor
   controls must be in the same tool".

   **Requirement 03-24**: Remote attendees MUST have an easy and
   standardized way of requesting the attention of the chair when the
   remote attendee wants to speak.  The remote attendee MUST also be
   able to easily cancel an attention request.  (Note that Requirement
   03-62 implies that someone is watching the request queue, something
   that does not happen consistently with the current tools.)

   **Functional spec 03-03**: The RPS MUST allow a remote attendee's
   request for attention to include an optional short text string.  A
   remote attendee might want to indicate that they are asking a
   question of the presenter, or answering a question that someone else
   asked at the mic, or want to bring up a new topic.

   **Functional spec 03-04**: Remote attendee's requests MUST be part of
   the floor control tool, not in the instant messaging system.

   **Requirement 03-25**: The chair MUST be able to see all requests
   from remote attendees to speak at any time during the entire meeting
   (not just during presentations) in the floor control system.

   **Requirement 03-26**: The floor control system MUST allow a chair to
   easily turn off and on an individual's ability to speak over the
   audio at any time.

   **Requirement 03-27**: The floor control system MUST allow a chair to
   easily mute all remote attendees.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 20]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   **Requirement 03-28**: The floor control system MUST allow a chair to
   easily allow all remote attendees to speak without requesting
   permission; that is, the chair MUST be able to easily turn on all
   remote attendees mics at once.

   **Requirement 03-29**: The floor control system for the chair MUST be
   able to be run by at least two users at the same time.  It is common
   for a chair to leave the room, to have a side discussion with an AD,
   or to become a presenter.  They should be able to do so without
   having to do a handoff of the floor control capability.

   **Functional spec 03-05**: The RPS MUST authenticate users who can
   use the floor control system in a particular meeting using simple
   passwords.

   **Requirement 03-30**: The IETF Secretariat MUST be able to easily
   set up the individuals allowed to use the floor control system for a
   particular meeting and to change the settings at any time, including
   during the meeting. [[[ TODO: Should those who are given floor
   control be allowed to augment that list to meet changing needs
   without going back to the Secretariat? ]]]

   [[[ TODO: Is it possible to tell if a remote attendee who is speaking
   loses network connectivity?  If so, maybe this can be shown to the
   chair. ]]]

   **Requirement 03-31**: The chair SHOULD be able to monitor the sound
   levels of the audio being delivered to remote attendees to be sure
   that they can hear what is going on in the room.

4.3.  Video

   The RFP that preceded the current document, [RPS-RFP], discusses
   video as a requirement.  The IETF has experimented with one-way and
   two-way video at some meetings in the past few years.  Remote
   attendees have said that seeing people in the meetings gave them a
   better understanding of the meeting; at a recent meeting, a remote
   presenter was able to see the people in line at the mic and was
   better able to interact with them. [[[ TODO: determine how much of
   this is needed for effective participation. ]]]

4.3.1.  Video from the Room to Remote Participants

   **Requirement 03-32**: Remote attendees MUST be able to see the
   presenter at a meeting.

   **Requirement 03-33**: Remote attendees MUST be able to see local
   attendees at any mic in the meeting.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 21]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   [[[ TODO: Is there a requirement that IETF video integrate with the
   venue video, if any? ]]]

4.3.2.  Video from Remote Participants to the Room

   Note that the requirements in this section probably only apply if
   there is consensus that audio from remote participants to the room is
   required.  If so, there will probably also be requirements for video
   floor control as well.

   **Requirement 03-34**: The RPS MUST have the capability of showing
   video of the remote attendee who is speaking over the audio to the
   local attendees.

   **Requirement 03-35**: A remote attendee who is speaking MUST be able
   to choose what is shown to local attendees: video of them speaking, a
   still picture of their face, or just their name.

   **Requirement 03-36**: The RPS MUST give a remote attendee a clear
   indication when their video image is being shown to the local
   attendees.

   [[[ TODO: The way to fulfill these might be that the IETF provide a
   laptop for the chair that has the right tools on it, and that laptop
   is the one connected to the projector. ]]]

4.4.  Instant Messaging

   Instant messaging (IM) is used both as a remote participation tool
   and as a communication tool for local attendees at a regular meeting.
   As noted earlier, while the current tool's Jabber room is a good way
   to get questions to the mic, it also becomes a second communications
   channel that only a few people in the room are participating in.
   This document does not address how to prevent that problem (or
   whether it really is much of a problem).  The instant messaging
   system is also useful for remote users to ask about the status of the
   room ("is anyone there?").

   **Requirement 03-37**: The IM system MUST allow anyone to see all
   messages in the WG's or BoF's room.

   **Requirement 03-38**: The IM system MUST allow any registered user
   (even those registered to use anonymous names) to post messages in
   the WG's or BoF's room.

   **Requirement 03-39**: The date and time that a message appears in an
   IM stream MUST be retained.  IM clients MUST be able to show an
   indication of the date and time for all messages.  Someone coming

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 22]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   into a meeting late requires context for which messages in an instant
   messaging room are recent and which are old.

   [[[ TODO: Should there be multiple rooms for a meeting?  There were
   many requests for a separate "speak into the mic" room, but that is
   not needed if the requirements in Section 4.2.2 are met.  Is there a
   need for other rooms? ]]]

   [[[ TODO: Should non-registered people be allowed to read the IM
   traffic in real time, given that anyone can register anonymously?
   Should people registered anonymously be allowed to post in IM rooms?
   Should non-registered attendees be able to post to the IM rooms? ]]]

4.5.  Slide Presentations

   Slides are presented in regular IETF meetings with projectors on a
   screen at the front of the room from the video output of one or more
   local attendees' computers.  If slides are to be presented to remote
   attendees, the slides being projecte need to also be sent as a stream
   to the remote attendees.

   In many current remote participation systems, slide presentations and
   the video coming from in-meeting cameras are sent as two separate
   streams (called the "slide stream" and the "camera stream").  The
   slide stream is usually much lower bandwidth than the camera stream,
   so remote attendees with limited bandwidth can choose to watch just
   the slides but not the local attendees.  Further, separating the
   streams allows remote attendees to see the slide stream and the
   camera streams in separate windows that can be independently sized.

   **Functional spec 03-06**: The RPS MUST transmit the slide stream
   separately from the camera stream.

   **Requirement 03-40**: The slide stream MUST represent the slides as
   they are projected in the room, allowing the presenter to go back and
   forth, as well as to edit slides in real time.

   **Requirement 03-41**: It MUST be made clear to the remote attendees
   which set of slides, and which slide number, is being currently
   shown.

   [[[ TODO: If the slides will be visible to remote attendees as they
   are presented, is there a requirement that presenters be able to use
   the equivalent of a laser pointer? ]]]

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 23]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

4.6.  Slide Distribution

   Slides are available to local and remote attendees on the IETF
   servers before and during regular IETF meetings.  This service is
   useful to all attendees who want to be prepared for WG meetings.  The
   slides are not only used by remote attendees listening to the WG
   meeting; it is common for local attendees to download the slides and
   view them on their laptops during meetings instead of having to read
   them at the front of the room.

   **Functional spec 03-07**: The RPS MUST be able to handle both PDF
   and PowerPoint formats (".ppt" and ".pptx") for distributed slides.
   [[[ TODO: Is there a requirement to support other formats? ]]] [[[
   TODO: For the distributed slides, is there a requirement that
   animation in PowerPoint be supported, or just static slides? ]]]

   **Functional spec 03-08**: The RPS MUST automatically convert
   PowerPoint presentations to PDF and make both available for
   distribution at the same time.

   **Requirement 03-42**: Presenters MUST be able to update their slides
   on the IETF site up to just before their presentation, if such update
   is allowed by the chairs.

   **Requirement 03-43**: Chairs MUST be able to approve or disapprove
   of any slide submission or updates, with the default being that all
   submissions are allowed.

4.7.  Shared Document Editing

   In some WG meetings, there is an attempt to edit a document with
   input from the local attendees.  This is typically done for proposed
   charter changes, but sometimes happens on a WG document or the
   meeting's agenda.  This is usually unsuccessful, given the amount of
   text and the size of what can be displayed on the screen.  In recent
   meetings, shared document editing has been used for editing charters
   and for taking minutes of meetings.

   An RPS tool for shared document editing would be equally useful for
   local and remote attendees watching the edits happen in real-time.
   There is a good chance that this tool would be watched by local
   attendees on their laptops instead of being projected on the screen
   because of the small size of the the text.  This, in turn, means that
   local attendees who aren't using their laptops at the moment would
   not be able to participate by watching.

   **Requirement 03-44**: It MUST be easy to start a new shared document
   and to import existing text into a shared document.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 24]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   **Requirement 03-45**: Shared real-time editing of text-only
   documents MUST be supported.  This system must allow at least three
   people to have write access and hundreds of people to have read
   access to any particular document.

   **Requirement 03-46**: Remote attendees MUST be able to be either the
   writers or the readers of shared documents.

   **Requirement 03-47**: Those with read access MUST be able to see the
   edits made by those with write access within less that five seconds
   after each edit.

   **Requirement 03-48**: It MUST be easy to change the permissions for
   who gets write access to a document during an editing session.

   [[[ TODO: Is this also needed for non-text documents?  If so, in what
   formats?  For example, is drawing on a whiteboard needed? ]]]

4.8.  Archiving

   Archived recordings of the events of the meetings are valuable for
   remote attendees who are not able to hear everything in real time.

   **Requirement 03-49**: The RPS MUST support storage and distribution
   of recordings of the audio, video, and slide presentations for all WG
   meetings.

   **Requirement 03-50**: Transcripts of the instant messaging for all
   meetings MUST be kept for distribution after IETF meetings.

   **Requirement 03-51**: The recordings and transcripts SHOULD be made
   available during the meetings, within a day of them being made.

   **Requirement 03-52**: Users MUST be able to easily find the archives
   of the recordings and instant messaging transcripts of a particular
   WG or BoF session at a particular meeting.

   **Requirement 03-53**: The RPS SHOULD support indexing of archived
   audio and video for particular events in meetings such as when
   speakers change.

   **Requirement 03-54**: The RPS MUST support recording and storage of
   recordings of the audio, video, and slide presentations of interim
   meetings as well as regular IETF meetings.

   **Requirement 03-55**: Given that interim meetings are run without
   the help of the IETF Secretariat, making these recordings MUST be
   easy for WG chairs.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 25]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

4.9.  Transcription

   **Requirement 03-56**: Transmitting real-time transcription to remote
   attendees MUST be supported.  The lag in transmission MUST be less
   than five seconds.

4.10.  Polling

   The common IETF method of assessing support is a straw poll,
   sometimes managed by audible humming, sometimes by raising hands.

   **Requirement 03-57**: A system for polling meeting participants,
   including remote attendees at the same time, MUST be provided.  It
   MUST be easy to set up a simple poll, and it must be easy for all
   participants to find the poll and participate.  Note that this would
   add a requirement that everyone in a meeting be using their computer
   to participate in the poll. [[[ TODO: Should the RPS also provide a
   tool that allows yes / no / abstain indications, which comes a lot
   closer to "voting" than currently is common? ]]]

4.11.  Plenaries

   At recent IETF meetings, there has been very little input from remote
   attendees even when there is a lot in the room, but that may be due
   to the current setup, not lack of interest.

   **Requirement 03-58**: Remote attendees SHOULD be able to make
   comments at the mic approximately as well as if they were local
   attendees.  This means that either remote audio to the plenary room
   speakers be available, or that IM-to-room relay be available.

   [[[ TODO: Are there other requirements that are special to plenaries
   that are not covered above?  Are there requirements not listed above
   that mostly come from plenaries that would also apply to very large
   WGs? ]]]

4.12.  Use by IETF Leadership

   The requirements for bodies like the IESG and IAB to use the RPS
   during regular IETF meetings are similar to those of most WGs.  The
   main difference is that they need a way to limit who can participate
   remotely.

   **Requirement 03-59**: The IETF Secretariat MUST be able to easily
   limit remote access to meetings on a room-by-room basis.

   **Requirement 03-60**: The IETF Secretariat must be able to limit
   participants in restricted meetings using a simple authentication

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 26]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   mechanism.

   Note that the IETF leadership will also heavily use the remote
   participation tools between IETF meetings in a manner that is very
   similar to virtual interim meetings.

4.13.  Additional Requirements for Remote Participation

   **Requirement 03-61**: Remote attendees MUST be able to easily find
   all the material they need to effectively participate, including
   links to audio, video, instant messaging, slides, and so on.  This
   material MUST be available well before the time of the meeting.  The
   page with the meeting material SHOULD allow the remote attendee to
   easily perform a time conversion to and from the local time at the
   IETF meeting.

   **Requirement 03-62**: A remote attendee who comes to a meeting late
   MUST be able to tell what is happening in the meeting.  In specific,
   there MUST be an indication if the meeting has not started, if the
   meeting is happening (even if there is silence on the mics), and if
   the meeting is over.

   **Requirement 03-63**: There MUST be a constantly-running testing
   service that covers all interactive tools (audio, video, slide
   display, and so on) for at least a week before the meeting begins.
   Remote attendees need to be able to test the remote participation
   setup before a regular meeting, and even during the meeting.

   **Requirement 03-64**: The testing service MUST run throughout the
   meeting so that last-minute joiners can test their systems.

   **Requirement 03-65**: The testing service SHOULD allow remote
   attendees to also test whether their outgoing audio, video, and slide
   control works.

   **Requirement 03-66**: Remote attendees SHOULD be able to easily
   contact the IETF Secretariat if they find problems with any of the
   RPS tools, and to get fairly rapid response.

   **Requirement 03-67**: Similarly, local attendees SHOULD be able to
   easily contact the IETF Secretariat if there are RPS problems in the
   meeting rooms.

   **Requirement 03-68**: The RPS tools MUST be available for AD-
   sponsored lunch meetings scheduled by the IETF Secretariat.  Regular
   IETF meetings are more than just a group of WG meetings.  Remote
   attendees may want to participate in the other parts of a regular
   meeting as well.

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 27]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   **Requirement 03-69**: Any tools that are used by remote attendees
   MUST also be available to local attendees as well.  At many IETF
   meetings, some local attendees act as remote attendees in WG meetings
   that they are not sitting in, so they can attend two WGs at once.

5.  Requirements for Supporting Remote Participation in Interim Meetings

   One of the goals of this document is to increase the effectiveness of
   interim meetings.  Interim meetings are now uncommon, but might
   become more common (and more effective) if the remote participation
   becomes more useful.

   **Functional spec 03-09**: The RPS SHOULD have a central location
   where the specifics about how remote participation is supported for
   every WG interim meeting.  This will reduce the problems often seen
   where messages about how to participate in an interim meeting get
   buried in the WG mailing list.

   **Requirement 03-70**: There SHOULD be documentation and training for
   the RPS tools specifically targeted at WG chairs who will lead
   interim meetings.

   [[[ TODO: Determine how much or how little the IETF Secretariat
   should participate in setting up the RPS for interim meetings.  The
   IETF Secretariat currently offers some help to some WGs, but this
   might become more formalized in the future. ]]]

5.1.  Requirements for Supporting Remote Participation in Face-to-Face
      Interim Meetings

   Face-to-face interim meetings have many things in common with regular
   IETF meetings, but there are also many significant differences.  For
   most WGs, fewer people attend interim meetings than IETF meetings,
   although those who travel to a face-to-face interim meeting are often
   the more active WG participants.  There may be a larger demand for
   remote participation because people have a harder time justifying
   travel for a single WG meeting than for an IETF meeting, but there
   may also be less demand because people tend to think of interim WG
   meetings as less important than regular IETF meetings..

   Typically, the IETF Secretariat does not control the rooms in which
   face-to-face interims are held, so they have no control over whether
   outgoing audio will be supported, or supported well enough to
   guarantee that remote attendees can hear. [[[ TODO: Should the IETF
   Secretariat be tasked with helping set up face-to-face interims? ]]]

   **Requirement 03-71**: The RPS tools MUST be at least partially

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 28]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   usable at face-to-face meetings other than regular IETF meetings.
   The number of the tools that might be available will be different for
   different venues for the virtual interims, but at a minimum, the
   following MUST be supported for remote attendees:

   o  Room audio

   o  Instant messaging

   o  Slide distribution

   o  Slide presentation

   o  Shared document editing

   [[[ TODO: What are the requirements for registering?  Interim
   meetings are generally considered to have a very different feeling
   than regular IETF meetings; does this affect the idea of
   registration?  What if registration is cheap but not free? ]]]

5.2.  Requirements for Supporting All-Remote Interim Meetings

   The requirements for meetings that are all remote (that is, with no
   local attendees) are mostly a subset of the requirements for remote
   participation in a regular IETF meetings and face-to-face interim
   meeting.  This section highlights the differences from Section 4 and
   Section 5.1.

   Video for all-remote meetings may be more important than for face-to-
   face meetings in order to help the chair with floor control. [[[
   TODO: Determine if this is true and, if so, the additional
   requirements for all the remote attendees. ]]]

   Attendance at virtual interim meetings is supposed to be taken, but
   this is sometimes ignored.  A system that is probably at least
   somewhat different than that in Section 4.13 may be needed for
   collecting attendance at virtual interim meetings. [[[ TODO: What are
   the requirements for registering?  Virtual interim meetings are
   generally considered to have a very different feeling than regular
   IETF meetings; does this affect the idea of registration? ]]]

   [[[ TODO: Are there different floor control issues for all-remote
   meetings? ]]]

6.  IANA Considerations

   None. [[ ...and thus this section can be removed before publication

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 29]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

   as an RFC... ]]

7.  Security Considerations

   People who participate remotely in face-to-face IETF meetings might
   expect the same level of privacy as they have when they participate
   directly in those meetings.  Some of the proposed tools might cause
   it to be easier to know which WGs a remote attendee was following.
   When RPS tools are deployed, the IETF should describe the privacy
   implications of using such a tool to the users so they can decide
   whether or not to use the tools.

   The eventual RPS tools will have some user authentication that will
   associate people with actions.  For example, a remote user might need
   to authenticate to the system in order to give a presentation or
   speak during a session.  The credentials needed for this
   authentication will need to be managed in a secure fashion, both by
   the system and by the people who are being identified.

8.  Acknowledgements

   Many of the ideas in this document were contributed by members of the
   IETF community based on their experiences during recent IETF
   meetings.  There are also many contributions from people on the
   vmeet@ietf.org mailing list as well as WG chairs.

   Some of the text in this document originated in the request for
   proposals that was issued by the IAOC that led to this document.

9.  Informative References

   [BCP78]    Bradner, S. and J. Contreras, "Rights Contributors Provide
              to the IETF Trust", BCP 78, RFC 5378, November 2008.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2418]  Bradner, S., "IETF Working Group Guidelines and
              Procedures", BCP 25, RFC 2418, September 1998.

   [RFC6120]  Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
              Protocol (XMPP): Core", RFC 6120, March 2011.

   [RFC6121]  Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
              Protocol (XMPP): Instant Messaging and Presence",

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 30]
Internet-Draft          Remote Participation Reqs             March 2012

              RFC 6121, March 2011.

   [RPS-RFP]  IAOC, "Request for Proposals for Requirements Development
              for Remote Participation Services", 2011, <http://
              iaoc.ietf.org/documents/
              RPS-Specifications-RFP-2011-10-19.pdf>.

Author's Address

   Paul Hoffman
   VPN Consortium

   Email: paul.hoffman@vpnc.org

Hoffman                Expires September 10, 2012              [Page 31]