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Shepherd writeup
draft-ietf-sieve-include

PROTO writeup for draft-ietf-sieve-include-13

The Sieve Working Group requests the publication of draft-ietf-sieve-include-13
as a Standards-Track RFC.

  (1.a) Who is the Document Shepherd for this document? Has the
        Document Shepherd personally reviewed this version of the
        document and, in particular, does he or she believe this
        version is ready for forwarding to the IESG for publication?

Barry Leiba is the document shepherd.  I have reviewed this version, and am
satisfied that it's ready.

  (1.b) Has the document had adequate review both from key WG members
        and from key non-WG members? Does the Document Shepherd have
        any concerns about the depth or breadth of the reviews that
        have been performed?

The document has adequate review, and I have no concerns.  There were no
significant controversies to point out.  Early prototype implementations
uncovered some issues that were resolved in later versions of the document, and
work on the document was prolonged to get experience with these implementations.

  (1.c) Does the Document Shepherd have concerns that the document
        needs more review from a particular or broader perspective,
        e.g., security, operational complexity, someone familiar with
        AAA, internationalization or XML?

I have no concerns.

  (1.d) Does the Document Shepherd have any specific concerns or
        issues 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. Has an IPR disclosure related to this document
        been filed? If so, please include a reference to the
        disclosure and summarize the WG discussion and conclusion on
        this issue.

I have no concerns.  There is no IPR involved.

  (1.e) 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?

There is consensus of the working group, as a whole, behind it.

  (1.f) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
        discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in
        separate email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It
        should be in a separate email because this questionnaire is
        entered into the ID Tracker.)

No.

  (1.g) Has the Document Shepherd personally verified that the
        document satisfies all ID nits? (See the Internet-Drafts Checklist
        and http://tools.ietf.org/tools/idnits/). Boilerplate checks are
        not enough; this check needs to be thorough. Has the document
        met all formal review criteria it needs to, such as the MIB
        Doctor, media type and URI type reviews?

Yes; the document is clean.

  (1.h) Has the document split its references into normative and
        informative? 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
        strategy for their completion? Are there normative references
        that are downward references, as described in [RFC3967]? If
        so, list these downward references to support the Area
        Director in the Last Call procedure for them [RFC3967].

All references are properly separated and labelled.  There are no downward
references.

  (1.i) Has the Document Shepherd verified that the document IANA
        consideration section exists and is consistent with the body
        of the document? If the document specifies protocol
        extensions, are reservations requested in appropriate IANA
        registries? Are the IANA registries clearly identified? If
        the document creates a new registry, does it define the
        proposed initial contents of the registry and an allocation
        procedure for future registrations? Does it suggest a
        reasonable name for the new registry? See [RFC5226]. If the
        document describes an Expert Review process has Shepherd
        conferred with the Responsible Area Director so that the IESG
        can appoint the needed Expert during the IESG Evaluation?

The IANA Considerations section is correct and adequate; there is one IANA
action.

  (1.j) Has the Document Shepherd verified that sections of the
        document that are written in a formal language, such as XML
        code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc., validate correctly in
        an automated checker?

The formal grammar, at the beginning of section 3.2, is correct and is
consistent with the grammar in the other Sieve documents.

  (1.k) 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
        Relevant content can frequently be found in the abstract
        and/or introduction of the document. If not, this may be
        an indication that there are deficiencies in the abstract
        or introduction.

The Sieve Email Filtering "include" extension permits users to include one
Sieve script inside another.  This can make managing large scripts or multiple
sets of scripts much easier, and allows a site and its users to build up
libraries of scripts.  Users are able to include their own personal scripts or
site-wide scripts.

     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?

This was a popular extension within the working group.  It was under active
development for about a year and a half, during which time a number of
suggestions were discussed, and issues were ironed out.  It then went dormant
for a year because the editors (also the two chairs) were very busy, and the
working group as a whole was very quiet.  Once revived, it was finished up with
final editing.  There are no controversies at this point, and there were no
major controversies during the document's development.

     Document Quality
        Are there existing implementations of the protocol? Have a
        significant number of vendors indicated their plan to
        implement the specification? 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, 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?

The issues that were worked out during document development were mostly dealing
with how to specify the included scripts, how multiple included scripts
interact, and how to resolve conflicts among the different scripts.  The
working group expects that this isn't the final version, and that it will be
updated after more experience in practical use -- that is, what's here is
appropriate for Proposed Standard.  There are at least two implementations of
draft versions, and at least two other implementors plan to implement the final
version.
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