IAB Thoughts on the Role of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF)
RFC 4440
Document | Type |
RFC - Informational
(March 2006; No errata)
Was draft-iab-irtf
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Last updated | 2015-10-14 | ||
Stream | IAB | ||
Formats | plain text pdf html bibtex | ||
Stream | IAB state | (None) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
RFC Editor Note | (None) |
Network Working Group S. Floyd, Ed. Request for Comments: 4440 V. Paxson, Ed. Category: Informational A. Falk, Ed. IAB March 2006 IAB Thoughts on the Role of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) Status of This Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). Abstract This document is an Internet Architecture Board (IAB) report on the role of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), both on its own and in relationship to the IETF. This document evolved from a discussion within the IAB as part of a process of appointing a new chair of the IRTF. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................2 2. The Relationship between the IRTF, the IAB, and the IETF ........2 2.1. Differences between IRTF and IETF Groups ...................3 2.2. Research Groups as Non-blocking Entities ...................3 3. The Range of IRTF Groups ........................................4 4. Issues for the Future ...........................................5 4.1. IRTF Groups and Network Architecture .......................5 4.2. The Relationship between the IETF and the IRTF .............6 4.3. Relationships between the Research and Development Communities ................................................8 4.3.1. What's in a Name: On the Name `Research Group' .....8 4.4. The RFC Track for IRTF Documents ...........................9 5. Security Considerations .........................................9 6. Acknowledgements ................................................9 7. Normative References ...........................................10 8. Informative References .........................................10 Floyd, et al. Informational [Page 1] RFC 4440 IAB Thoughts on IRTF Role March 2006 1. Introduction As part of the process of appointing a new chair of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), the IAB considered the future role of the IRTF both on its own and in relationship to the IETF. The IAB has expanded this discussion into this IAB report on the role of the IRTF, and circulated this document for wider community review. (As one result of this discussion, Aaron Falk was appointed the new chair of the IRTF in March 2005.) 2. The Relationship between the IRTF, the IAB, and the IETF Before 1989, the IAB (then called the Internet Activities Board) oversaw a number of task forces. In 1989, organizational changes were made to coalesce these task forces into two groups, the IETF and the IRTF. The IRTF was tasked to consider long-term research problems in the Internet, and the IETF was to concentrate on short- to medium-term engineering issues related to the Internet. At this time, all of the task forces except the IETF were restructured as IRTF research groups. For example, the End-to-End Task Force became the IRTF's End-to-End Research Group (E2ERG) and the Privacy & Security Task Force became the IRTF's Privacy & Security Research Group (PSRG) [IABWebPages] [RFC3160] [E2ERG]. Much of the early participation in the IETF as well as in the IRTF was from the academic and research communities. (We don't have a citation from this, but a look at the members of the IAB from the 1980's and early 1990's shows IAB members from institutions such as MIT, UCLA, BBN, UCL, SDSC, and the like, while IAB members from the last few years were more likely to list their organizations at the time of service as Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Nokia, Qualcomm, and Verisign [IABWebPages]. We expect that a study of authors of RFCs would show a similar trend over time, with fewer authors from the academic and research communities, and more authors from the commercial world.) While the IRTF has continued to have significant participation from the academic and research communities, the IETF has focused on standards development and has become dominated by the needs of the commercial sector. The IRTF has generally focused on investigation into areas that are not considered sufficiently mature for IETF standardization, as well as investigation of areas that are not specifically the subject of standardization, but could guide future standards efforts. The IRTF Research Groups guidelines and procedures are described in RFC 2014. The IRTF Chair is appointed by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), and charters IRTF research groups (RGs) in consultationShow full document text