Network Working Group S. Trowbridge
Internet-Draft Lucent Technologies
Expires: December 18, 2003 S. Bradner
Harvard University
F. Baker
Cisco Systems
June 19, 2003
Procedure for handling liaison statements from and to various
standards bodies
draft-baker-liaisons-00
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://
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This Internet-Draft will expire on December 18, 2003.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document describes the procedure for proper handling of incoming
liaison statements from other standards development organizations
(SDOs), consortia, and industry fora, and for generating liaison
statements to be transmitted from IETF/ISOC to other SDOs, consortia
and industry fora. This procedure allows IETF to effectively
collaborate with other organizations in the international standards
community.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Liaison Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1 Contents of a Liaison Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.1 From: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.2 To: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.3 Title: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.4 Response Contact: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.5 Technical Contact: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.6 Purpose: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.7 Deadline: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.8 Body: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1.9 Attachments: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2 Addressee Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Liaison Statements from other SDOs, Consortia, and Fora
to IETF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1 Liaison Statement Submission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2 Web Page for displaying Liaison Statements . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Communicating IETF information to other SDOs, consortia,
and fora . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1 Spontaneously generating Liaisons to other organizations . . 9
4.1.1 Transmitting IETF documents to other organizations . . . . . 9
4.1.2 Requests for Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1.3 Requesting comments on Work in Progress . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.1.4 Requests for Other Actions (besides comments on IETF
drafts) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2 Responding to Incoming Liaisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2.1 Responding to Requests for Information . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.2 Responding to Requests for Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.3 Responding to Request for Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2.4 Tool for generating liaisons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3 Approval and Transmission of Liaison Statements . . . . . . 12
4.4 Indication on Outgoing Liaison Statements about how to
Respond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 18
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1. Introduction
This document describes the procedure for proper handling of incoming
liaison statements and for generating liaison statements to be
transmitted from IETF/ISOC so that IETF can effectively collaborate
with other organizations in the international standards community.
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2. Liaison Statements
A Liaison Statement is a business letter sent by one standards
organization to another. These organizations may be at any level
(working group, area, etc); generally, the sender and receiver are
peer organizations. A liaison statement may have any purpose, but
generally the purpose is to solicit information, comment, or action.
2.1 Contents of a Liaison Statement
Liaison statements may be very formal or quite informal, depending on
the rules of the body generating them. Any liaison statement,
however, will always contain certain information, much as an business
letter does. This information will include the following,
2.1.1 From:
The statement will indicate what body it is from; it may be from, for
example, an IETF working group or area, An ITU-T Study Group, Working
Party, or Question, etc. In this document, this body is the "sender".
2.1.2 To:
The statement will indicate what body it is to. In this document,
this body is the "addressee".
2.1.3 Title:
The statement will contain a short (single line) statement of its
context and content.
2.1.4 Response Contact:
The sender will indicate the electronic mail address that any
response should be sent to.
2.1.5 Technical Contact:
The sender will indicate one or more electronic mail addresses
(persons or lists) that may be contacted for clarification of the
liaison.
2.1.6 Purpose:
While others are possible, a liaison generally has one of three
purposes, and will clearly state its purpose using one of these
labels:
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For Information The liaison is to inform the addressee of something,
and expects no response.
For Comment The liaison requests commentary from the addressee,
usually within a stated time frame.
For Action The liaison requests that the addressee do something on
the sender's behalf.
In Reply The liaison replies to a previous liaison, usually one sent
for comment or for action.
2.1.7 Deadline:
Liaisons that request comment or action will indicate when the
comment or action is required. If the addressee cannot accomplish the
request within the stated period, courtesy calls for a response
offering a more doable deadline or an alternative course of action.
2.1.8 Body:
As with any business letter, the liaison contains appropriate
content.
2.1.9 Attachments:
Attachments, if enclosed, may be in the form of documents sent with
the liaison or may be URLs to similar documents including Intrenet
Drafts. If these are in formats not used in the Internet Draft
directory, the sending organization should assume that some IETF
participants may be unable to read them.
2.2 Addressee Responsibilities
The responsibilities of the addressee of a liaison statement are the
same as the responsibilities of any business letter. A liaison calls
for appropriate consideration of its contents, and if a reply is
requested, a courteous reply within the expected time frame. The
reply may be that the information was useful, that it was not useful,
that the requested action has been accomplished, it be accomplished
by a specified date, it will not be done for a specific reason, or
any other appropriate reply.
A liaison statement, like any other temporary document, must be
considered in terms of its relevance, importance, and its urgency.
One hopes that a liaison statement will be sent to the right
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organization, but this cannot be assured; an SDO might send a liaison
to a specific IETF area which the area director deems is better
handled by one of the working groups, or it might be sent to one
working group when it should have gone to another. If a liaison
arrives which appears misdirected, the assignee should promptly
redirect it, by reassigning it in the ID Tracker and forwarding the
associated email appropriately. In some cases, a liaison may require
consideration by multiple bodies; in such cases, one takes the lead
and responsibility.
Liaisons are always important to the body that sent them. Having
arrived at the appropriate body, the liaison may be more or less
important to the addressee depending on the contents of the liaison
and the expertise of the sender. If the liaison seeks to influence
the direction of a working group's development, it should get the
same consideration that any temporary document receives. The working
group chair may request the sender's contacts to make their case to
the IETF working group in the same manner and on the same basis that
an internet draft author makes his case.
The urgency of a liaison is usually reflected in its deadline. A
liaison for informational purposes will have no deadline; a courteous
"thank you" is called for, after which the working group may inform
itself of the contents and close the document. A liaison specifying a
deadline, however, gives the addressee a finite opportunity to
influence the activity of another body; if it fails to react in a
timely fashion, it may miss this opportunity.
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3. Liaison Statements from other SDOs, Consortia, and Fora to IETF
The process of handling a liaison statement is a little heavier than
the handling of a business letter, however, because the organizations
and issues are heavier. To manage liaison statements, the IETF will
offer three web-accessible facilities: a form for submission of
liaison statements, a web page organizing their contents and making
them accessible, and a tracking system.
3.1 Liaison Statement Submission
The IETF Secretariat will offer a liaison submission web page. This
web page is accessible if and only if the person accessing it is
authenticated by a specified certificate or cookie. The mechanism for
distributing the authentication information is outside the scope of
this document.
The liaison submission web page is a form that requests the
information listed in Section 2.1 from the authenticated user.
Additionally, it has a button marked "reply" and if a reply has been
generated, a pointer to the reply liaison page..
Submission of that information results in the following automated
actions:
o the addition of a URL to the "outstanding liaisons" summary web
page,
o creation of a display web page,
o a tickler/status entry in the ID tracker, assigned to the relevant
chair or AD
o an email to the assignee, copying the liaison's technical contacts
and an alias associated with the target (WG/BOF or other open
mailing list, area directorate, IESG, IAB, etc.) that contains
the URL to said web page and indicates that the liaison has
arrived, requests appropriate consideration, and if a deadline is
specified, a reply by the deadline.
The assignee has the capability of interacting with the ID tracker,
including changing dates, reassignment, closing the liaison process,
etc.
The ID Tracker's "tickle" function periodically reminds assignee by
email that the liaison has not yet been closed. It copies all of the
above except the associated mailing list.
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Since a liaison is a temporary document, it lives by the rules
similar to those for IETF temporary documents: the liaison remains
posted until six months after having been closed.
3.2 Web Page for displaying Liaison Statements
The IETF site contains a section for current liaison activity. This
consists of
o A summary web page,
o A status/summary web page for each active or recently closed
liaison, and
o zero or more associated files.
The summary web page contains a simple frame, showing the title of
the liaison, the URL for its web page, and the organizations it is
from and to.
The web page for the liaison contains the information entered during
liaison submission, plus URLs for the various associated files. It
also contains the current status of the liaison: who it is assigned
to, its due date, and its status. It also contains a pointer to the
ID Tracker entry for the liaison. [consideration: if the ID Tracker
primarily contains assignee, status, etc, it may be worthwhile to
leave the information found in the ID Tracker there and refer to it
using this URL]
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4. Communicating IETF information to other SDOs, consortia, and fora
This includes liaisons sent in reply to liaisons sent by other
bodies, and liaisons being sent by the IETF.
4.1 Spontaneously generating Liaisons to other organizations
Liaisons can be generated at a WG, Area, or IETF level to another
organization. The respective (co)chair(s) are responsible for judging
the degree of consensus for sending the particular liaison and what
the content should be. The amount of consensus required to send a
liaison statement varies greatly depending on its content. This
section gives some rough guidance about how much consensus should be
sought before sending a liaison statement to another organization.
4.1.1 Transmitting IETF documents to other organizations
The simplest case of approving sending of a liaison from IETF is
where the information that is being transmitted consists of an IETF
document that has some level of agreement within the IETF. The
process that the document has already gone through to achieve its
current status assures the necessary level of consensus. Any
Standards Track RFC (Draft Standard, Proposed Standard, Internet
Standard, BCP), and any working group document expected to be placed
on the standards track, may be transmitted without concern.
Informational documents may also be exchanged readily when they
represent a working group position or consensus, such as a
requirements or architecture document.
In all cases, the document status must be appropriately noted. In the
case of a Working Group Internet Draft, it must be clear that the
existence of the draft only indicates that the Working Group has
accepted the work item and, as the standard disclaimer says, the
actual content can be treated as nothing more than Work in Progress.
Individual Internet Drafts, Experimental or Historical RFCs, and
non-working group informational documents should not be transmitted
without developing further consensus within the relevant group, as
these documents cannot be truthfully represented as any kind of IETF
position.
4.1.2 Requests for Information
Another type of liaison that can be generated without the need for
extensive consensus building on the email list is a request for
information. The (co)chairs(s) can generate such a liaison when they
recognize from the activities of the group that some additional
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information would be helpful, for example, to resolve an impasse
(i.e., don't waste time arguing over what the real meaning or intent
of another SDOs document is, just ask the other SDO and base further
work on the "official" answer).
Other requests for information may be to request access to certain
documents of other organizations that are not publicly available.
4.1.3 Requesting comments on Work in Progress
There may be cases where people feel that a document under
development in the IETF would benefit from the input of experts in
another relevant SDO, consortium, or forum. Generally, this is done
before the text is "fully cooked" so that input from experts in
another organization can be included in the final result. Comments
would generally be solicited for a standards track working group
Internet Draft and some level of consensus should be reached on the
working group or other open mailing list that it is appropriate to
ask another organization for comments on an IETF draft.
4.1.4 Requests for Other Actions (besides comments on IETF drafts)
There are a number of other kinds of actions that might reasonably be
requested of another organization:
o In the case of overlapping or related work in another
organization, a request could be made that the other organization
change something to align with the IETF work.
o A request could be made for another organization to start a new
work item (on behalf of IETF).
o A request could be made for another organization to stop a work
item (presumably because it overlaps or conflicts with other work
in the IETF).
These sorts of requests are quite serious. They can certainly be made
where appropriate, but these kinds of requests should only be made
where there is the clearest possible consensus within the particular
Working Group, Area, or within the IETF at large.
4.2 Responding to Incoming Liaisons
Any incoming liaison that indicates that it is for "Comment" or for
"Action" requires a response by the deadline; other liaisons may also
be replied to, although a reply is generally optional. It is the
responsibility of the (co)chair(s) of the addressed organization to
make sure that a response is generated by the deadline.
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4.2.1 Responding to Requests for Information
If another organization requests information that can be found in an
IETF document of the types indicated in Section 4.1.1, this can be
transmitted by the (co)chair(s) of the addressed group, indicating
the level of agreement for the relevant document.
4.2.2 Responding to Requests for Comments
If an incoming liaison requests comments on a document from another
organization, a discussion will occur on the mailing list where
participants can provide their comments.
If a clear consensus is evident from the pattern of comments made to
the mailing list, the (co)chair(s) can summarize the conclusions in a
reply liaison back to the originating organization.
If no clear consensus is evident from the pattern of comments on the
mailing list, a response is still due to the originator. A summary of
the email comments can be created and sent to the originator, and
represented as "collected comments" rather than as a consensus of the
IETF group to which the liaison was addressed. It is possible to send
this kind of a reply even if some of the comments are contradictory.
4.2.3 Responding to Request for Action
A request for Action is a fairly serious thing. Examples of the kinds
of actions that may be expected are:
o In the case of overlapping or related work in another
organization, another organization may request that the IETF align
its work with that of the other organization.
o A request could be made for IETF to undertake a new work item.
o A request could be made for IETF to stop a work item (presumably
because it overlaps or conflicts with other work in the
originating organization).
Consensus of the receiving group within IETF is clearly necessary to
be able to fulfill the request. Fulfilling the request may require a
great deal of time and multiple steps, for example, if initiating or
stopping a work item requires a charter change.
There is, of course, no requirement that IETF perform the action that
was requested. But the request should always be taken seriously, and
a response is required. The originating organization must always be
informed of what, if anything, the IETF has decided to do in response
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to the request. If the IETF decides not to honor the request, or to
honor it with modifications, the response should include the reasons
and, if applicable, the alternate course of action.
For tasks that require a great deal of time, it may be necessary that
several liaisons be sent back to the originating organization to
report the status of the work and the anticipated completion time.
The first of these liaisons must be generated by the deadline
indicated in the incoming liaison.
4.2.4 Tool for generating liaisons
The liaison page described in Section 3 may be used to generate a
reply. If an authenticated person (usually a working group char or
AD) selects "reply", a new liaison page is generated from the
existing one, to send the reply using. The "reply-to" email address
is used as a target rather than the selection of working groups and
areas, and the selection of working groups and areas is displayed as
a "from" field. In the case that the IETF is originating the liaison,
the appropriate target must be.
4.3 Approval and Transmission of Liaison Statements
It is important that appropriate leadership review be made of
proposed IETF liaison statements and that those who write such
statements who claim to be speaking on behalf of IETF are truly
representing IETF views.
All outgoing liaison statements will be copied to IETF Secretariat by
the liaison page.Copying liaison statements to the Secretariat is to
ensure posting of the outgoing liaison statements as described in
section 5.
For a liaison statement generated on behalf of an IETF working group,
the working group chair(s) must have generated, or must agree with
the sending of the liaison statement, and must advise the Area
Director(s) that the liaison statement has been sent by copying the
appropriate Area Directors on the message.
For a liaison statement generated on behalf of an IETF Area, the Area
Director(s) must have generated or must agree with the sending of the
liaison statement. If the liaison statement is not sent by the Area
Directors then their agreement is indicated by copying the Area
Directors on the message.
For a liaison statement generated on behalf of the IETF as a whole,
the IETF Chair must have generated or must agree with the sending of
the liaison statement. If the liaison statement is not sent by the
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IETF Chair then his or her agreement is indicated by copying the IETF
Chair on the message.
4.4 Indication on Outgoing Liaison Statements about how to Respond
All outgoing liaison statements should indicate how to respond. This
is standard text which can be appended by the secretariat when the
liaison statement is sent. This text should read:
Please send any responses to this liaison statement via email to
statements@ietf.org, indicating
Attention: (xxx Working Group)|(xxx Area)|IETF
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5. Security Considerations
One of the key considerations in developing this process has been the
possibility of a denial of service attack on the IETF and its
processes. Historically, the IETF has not handled liaisons
effectively, resulting in people working in other organizations
becoming frustrated with it. Various organizations have also used the
liaison process to attempt to impose deadlines on IETF activities,
which has been frustrating for all concerned - the IETF because it
does not accept such, and the other organizations because they feel
ignored.
This is the reason that the submission process is automated, and
restricted to authenticated submitters. While the IETF cannot
rate-limit the submitters it authenticates, it can control who it
authenticates, and it can manage its internal pipelines.
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6. Acknowledgements
This text has been prompted by discussions with numerous individuals
within IETF and other Standards Development Organizations and Fora,
including Gary Fishman and Bert Wijnen. Personal experiences and some
"miscues" in coordinating work across ITU-T Study Group 15 and the
IETF Sub-IP Area have also motivated this work. Some drafts
addressing individual problems (e.g.,
draft-andersson-mpls-g-chng-proc-00.txt and RFC 3427) make it clear
that a more general, consistent solution is needed for dealing with
outside organizations. Certain ideas have been borrowed from these
texts.
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Normative References
[1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[2] Fishman, G. and S. Bradner, "Internet Engineering Task Force and
International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunications
Standardization Sector Collaboration Guidelines", RFC 3356,
August 2002.
[3] International Telecommunications Union, "IETF and ITU-T
collaboration guidelines, Supplement 3, http://www.itu.int/
dms_pub/itu-t/rec/a/T-REC-A.Sup3-200111-I!!PDF-E.pdf", ITU-T
SERIES A: ORGANIZATION OF THE WORK OF ITU-T, November 2001.
Authors' Addresses
Stephen J. Trowbridge
Lucent Technologies
1200 West 120th Avenue, Suite 232, Room 34W34
Westminster, Colorado 80234-2795
USA
Phone: +1 303 920 6545
Fax: +1 303 920 6553
EMail: sjtrowbridge@lucent.com
Scott Bradner
Harvard University
29 Oxford St.
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
USA
Phone: +1 617 495 3864
Fax:
EMail: sob@harvard.edu
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Fred Baker
Cisco Systems
1121 Via Del Rey
Santa Barbara, California 93117
USA
Phone: +1-408-526-4257
Fax: +1-413-473-2403
EMail: fred@cisco.com
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