As required by RFC 4858, this is the current template for the Document
Shepherd Write-Up. Changes are expected over time.
This review is written against draft-ietf-rum-rue-10 on 21-jan-2022.
(1) What type of RFC is being requested (BCP, Proposed Standard, Internet
Standard, Informational, Experimental, or Historic)? Why is this the proper
type of RFC? Is this type of RFC indicated in the title page header?
Proposed Standard
(2) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement Write-Up.
Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent examples can be
found in the "Action" announcements for approved documents. The approval
announcement contains the following sections:
Technical Summary:
Video Relay Service (VRS) is a term used to describe a method by
which a hearing person can communicate with a deaf, hard of hearing
or hearing impaired user using an interpreter ("Communications
Assistant") connected via a videophone to the deaf/hard of hearing/
hearing impaired user and an audio telephone call to the hearing
user. The CA interprets using sign language on the videophone link
and voice on the telephone link. Often the interpreters may be
employed by a company or agency termed a "provider" in this document.
The provider also provides a video service that allows users to
connect video devices to their service, and subsequently to CAs and
other deaf/hard of hearing/hearing impaired users. It is desirable
that the videophones used by the deaf, hard of hearing or hearing
impaired user conform to a standard so that any device may be used
with any provider and that direct video calls between deaf, hard of
hearing or hearing impaired users work. This document describes the
interface between a videophone and a provider.
Working Group Summary:
Was there anything in WG process that is worth noting? For example, was there
controversy about particular points or were there decisions where the consensus
was particularly rough?
There was not a lot of energy in the group to move the work along. Notably, the
representatives of VRS providers were reluctant to contribute and mostly
offered objections. Reaching consensus under these conditions was challenging
and often consensus was quite rough.
Document Quality:
Are there existing implementations of the protocol?
There is a partial implementation by Mitre. This is intended as a verification
and test vehicle. They have committed to creating a full implementation when
the document becomes an RFC.
Have a significant number of vendors indicated their plan to implement the
specification?
No. But the most likely vendors are the VRS providers. They do what they are
required to do by the FCC. It is expected that the FCC will mandate this and
then they will implement it.
Are there any reviewers that merit special mention as having done a thorough
review, e.g., one that resulted in important changes or a conclusion that the
document had no substantive issues? If there was a MIB Doctor, YANG Doctor,
Media Type or other expert review, what was its course (briefly)? In the case
of a Media Type review, on what date was the request posted?
No.
Personnel:
Who is the Document Shepherd? Who is the Responsible Area Director?
Shepherd: Paul Kyzivat
AD: Murray Kucherawy
(3) Briefly describe the review of this document that was performed by the
Document Shepherd. If this version of the document is not ready for
publication, please explain why the document is being forwarded to the IESG.
The shepherd has actively reviewed and provided feedback and suggestions on
every version of this document, and verified all the formal language-based
content, and reviewed the results of IdNits.
(4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or breadth of
the reviews that have been performed?
No.
(5) Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from broader
perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, AAA, DNS, DHCP, XML, or
internationalization? If so, describe the review that took place.
This version of the document addresses concerns raised in a security review of
the prior version.
(6) Describe any specific concerns or issues that the Document Shepherd has
with this document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the IESG should be
aware of? For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable with certain parts of
the document, or has concerns whether there really is a need for it. In any
event, if the WG has discussed those issues and has indicated that it still
wishes to advance the document, detail those concerns here.
The market in which implementations of this document will primarily be deployed
is unusual. The server side is controlled by a small set of VRS providers that
are funded by the FCC and governed by rules issued by the FCC. The deployment
of this standard will presumably be driven by new FCC requirements referencing
it. The subject area covered by this document has heretofore been addressed
with proprietary devices and/or software. The motivation for this work comes
from outside the VRS provider community, while most people with experience
building RUE-like devices work for the VRS providers.
There are compromises made with the VRS providers that have shaped the document
in ways that is somewhat different from how it would have come out without
their participation, yet the participation of these providers is deemed
essential, and their co-operation is sincerely appreciated. On the other hand,
the rough consensus process has indeed overcome objections of all the
participating providers, and they are not happy with certain aspects of the
document. The shepherd is satisfied that the IETF processes on determining
consensus were fairly applied, and the document represents a reasonable
compromise between the providers as a whole and the rest of the work group.
(7) Has each author confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR disclosures
required for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79 have
already been filed?
Yes.
(8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document? If so,
summarize any WG discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR disclosures.
Many IPR disclosures have been filed repeatedly against every new draft version
of this document by one of the VRS providers. Based on a superficial
examination, these seem to cover primarily features that impact downstream
actions within the VRS provider and not the functionality addressed by this
document. (Disclaimer, this is not a legal analysis.)
Participants have been afforded opportunities to suggest any changes in the
document that may further avoid the IPR claimed in the patents, and no
suggestions have been made.
Given the market in which this will be applied the current participants (all
the VRS providers) clearly have already come to grips with the IPR environment.
It is possible that an outsider who wants to create and sell a compatible RUE
device might need to address some IPR issues. It isn't clear that there is any
such candidate among the current participants of the work group.
(9) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it represent the
strong concurrence of a few individuals, with others being silent, or does the
WG as a whole understand and agree with it?
The consensus is reluctant. Many of the participants represent the interests of
the VRS providers, and seemingly would prefer there be no such standard.
(Presumably they assume they will be compelled by the FCC to support it.)
However, despite repeated requests, their objections have not been accompanied
by contribution of constructive alternatives.
The rest of the reviews and opinions come from more experienced IETF
participants and they have generally been solidly in favor of the document as
it now is constituted. In a few cases, some compromise has been achieved,
where the more experienced IETFers would have preferred somewhat different
text, but were persuaded the the compromise text was acceptable. Similarly,
there are a few instances where the providers were initially against
requirements deemed essential by our more experienced IETF participants, they
offered some suggested additional requirements that the IETFers did not think
were necessary, and they were accepted.
(10) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme discontent?
Representatives of a major VRS provider have contacted this
chairperson/shepherd with a request for guidance on how they may escalate their
concerns. They were referred to the Responsible Area Director.
If so, please summarize the areas of conflict in separate email messages to the
Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a separate email because this
questionnaire is publicly available.)
(11) Identify any ID nits the Document Shepherd has found in this document.
(See http://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/ and the Internet-Drafts Checklist).
Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be thorough.
IdNits reports some errors and warnings that are bogus:
* 3 instances of lines with non-ascii characters. These all appear in reference
citations where they are now permitted. One of these is also reported as a line
too long, due solely to the non-ascii character being counted as multiple bytes.
* 2 warnings for "looks like a reference" for use of [1] and [2] in examples.
In addition three downrefs are reported, referencing RFC2818, RFC3960 and
RFC5168. These are discussed in (15) below.
(12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review criteria, such
as the MIB Doctor, YANG Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.
The shepherd verified the json using the tool jsonlint <https://jsonlint.com/>,
and the OpenAPI 3.1 descriptions of the interfaces using
<https://apitools.dev/swagger-parser/online/>.
(13) Have all references within this document been identified as either
normative or informative?
YES
(14) Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for
advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative references
exist, what is the plan for their completion?
NO
(15) Are there downward normative references references (see RFC 3967)? If so,
list these downward references to support the Area Director in the Last Call
procedure.
There are three downrefs, referencing RFC2818, RFC3960 and RFC5168.
RFC2818 is an informational RFC that describes how to use TLS to secure HTTP
connections. The RUE document defines web interfaces that run securely over
HTTPS and TLS. Doing so requires following the guidance in RFC2818. Hence we
made this a normative reference.
RFC3960 is an informational RFC that describes how SIP entities handle early
media. Early media is media that happens before a call is answered, which may
be tones and announcements but also could be from an IVR system that doesn’t
signal answer until a live agent answers the call. It’s the case that
virtually every implementation has to do what RFC3960 says because otherwise
things don’t work, yet the text has no normative RFC119 language. Hence we made
this a normative reference.
RFC5168 documents an older way to request full frame refresh on a video stream
that many older devices still use. To connect to them it is necessary to do
what RFC5168 says. We want that backward compatibility, so we required it.
(16) Will publication of this document change the status of any existing RFCs?
Are those RFCs listed on the title page header, listed in the abstract, and
discussed in the introduction? If the RFCs are not listed in the Abstract and
Introduction, explain why, and point to the part of the document where the
relationship of this document to the other RFCs is discussed. If this
information is not in the document, explain why the WG considers it unnecessary.
NO
(17) Describe the Document Shepherd's review of the IANA considerations
section, especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the
document. Confirm that all protocol extensions that the document makes are
associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries. Confirm that
any referenced IANA registries have been clearly identified. Confirm that newly
created IANA registries include a detailed specification of the initial
contents for the registry, that allocations procedures for future registrations
are defined, and a reasonable name for the new registry has been suggested (see
RFC 8126).
The definition of the new RUE Provider List registry is properly specified.
The update to the SIP Call-Info header field purpose is in good order.
(18) List any new IANA registries that require Expert Review for future
allocations. Provide any public guidance that the IESG would find useful in
selecting the IANA Experts for these new registries.
The new RUE Provider List needs an expert. This is a per-country registry. The
expert should ideally be comfortable working with this sort of regulatory
environment.
The document editor, Brian Rosen, will volunteer to be the expert and there are
other candidates who could be considered
(19) Describe reviews and automated checks performed by the Document Shepherd
to validate sections of the document written in a formal language, such as XML
code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, YANG modules, etc.
The shepherd verified the json using the tool jsonlint <https://jsonlint.com/>,
and the OpenAPI 3.1 descriptions of the interfaces using
<https://apitools.dev/swagger-parser/online/>.
(20) If the document contains a YANG module, has the module been checked with
any of the recommended validation tools
(https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ops/wiki/yang-review-tools) for syntax and
formatting validation? If there are any resulting errors or warnings, what is
the justification for not fixing them at this time? Does the YANG module comply
with the Network Management Datastore Architecture (NMDA) as specified in
RFC8342?
N/A