Requirements for a Working Group Charter Tool
RFC 6292

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                        P. Hoffman
Request for Comments: 6292                                VPN Consortium
Category: Informational                                        June 2011
ISSN: 2070-1721

             Requirements for a Working Group Charter Tool

Abstract

   The IETF intends to provide a new tool to Area Directors for the
   creation, re-chartering, and closing of Working Groups.  The tool
   will also allow the IETF community to view the status of the
   chartering process.  This document describes the requirements for the
   proposed new tool, and it is intended as input to a later activity
   for the design and development of such a tool.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6292.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 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
   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                       Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 6292                  WG Charter Tool Reqs                 June 2011

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1.  WG Charter Process Overview  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  General Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     2.1.  WG Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.2.  Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     2.3.  Naming of Charter Text Proposals . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     2.4.  Wording of Announcements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
     2.5.  Access to the Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     2.6.  Initializing the Tool  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   3.  Creating and Rechartering WGs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.1.  Chartering a New WG  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.2.  Rechartering an Existing WG  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     3.3.  Ballots for Charter Approval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   4.  Requesting the Closing of a WG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   5.  Searching, Comparing, and Tracking Charters  . . . . . . . . .  9
     5.1.  Viewing and Searching the Charter Database . . . . . . . .  9
     5.2.  Seeing Differences between Versions of Pre-Approval
           Wordings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.3.  Tracking Charters with an Atom Feed  . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   7.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   8.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     8.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     8.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Hoffman                       Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 6292                  WG Charter Tool Reqs                 June 2011

1.  Introduction

   [RFC2418] describes the guidelines and procedures for formation and
   operation of IETF Working Groups (WGs).  Since the publication of RFC
   2418 in 1998, the IETF has started many dozen new WGs, and has shut
   down many dozen.  In that time, many WGs have had some (often dozens)
   changes to their charters.

   Today, virtually all of the tasks associated with creating,
   rechartering, and closing a WG are performed manually.  An Area
   Director (AD) requests one of these actions by manually sending a
   message to the Secretariat's ticket system.  A member of the
   Secretariat staff manually updates the internal Secretariat database
   and the IETF Datatracker, manually places the WG on the IESG
   teleconference agenda (when appropriate), and manually sends out all
   of the required messages and announcements.