RFC 8717

IETF Administrative Support Activity 2.0: Consolidated Updates to IETF Administrative Terminology

📅 published February 2020, from ietf

IETF Administrative Support Activity 2.0: Consolidated Updates to IETF Administrative Terminology 💅✨

Okay bestie, let's start with the header. This is RFC 8717 from February 2020, published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) with J. Klensin as editor (that "Ed." just means editor 🫶). It's filed as a Best Current Practice (BCP 101), with ISSN 2070-1721. The header doesn't list anything it obsoletes. Its whole job is to update RFCs 2028, 2418, 3005, 3710, 3929, 4633, and 6702 so their old job titles and org relationships match the new admin setup 🦋

Abstract ✨

Okay so in 2018 the IETF switched to a new admin structure and upgraded its IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) into "IASA 2.0" 🎀 The big changes are explained in other docs, but this switch also reshuffled a bunch of position titles and org relationships that other RFCs point to. Instead of reissuing every single one of those, this spec updates them and deprecates a few now-obsolete docs so nobody gets confused. Iconic behavior, honestly 💖

Status of This Memo 📜

This memo documents an Internet Best Current Practice.

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). Further information on BCPs is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.

Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8717.

Copyright (c) 2020 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 (https://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.

Table of Contents 🗺️

1.  Introduction
2.  Where Appropriate, Replacement of the IETF Executive Director
        Position with the Managing Director, IETF Secretariat
3.  Removal of the IETF Executive Director as an Option
4.  Deprecated Documents
  4.1.  Documents Whose Context Is Changed by This Specification
  4.2.  General Description of the IETF Administrative Model
5.  Security Considerations
6.  References
  6.1.  Normative References
  6.2.  Informative References
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Author's Address

1. Introduction 🌸

In 2018 the IETF began its move to a new admin structure and upgraded its IETF Administrative Support Activity (IASA) into a new "IASA 2.0" structure [RFC8711]. The key IASA 2.0 changes have been specified in a bunch of docs: the IETF Trust [RFC8714], the rationale behind it [RFC8715], a brand-new defining doc for the IETF Administration LLC [LLC-Agreement] (informally called the "IETF LLC" or just "the LLC" in places here and elsewhere), and tweaks to how nominations and selections work for the relevant positions [RFC8713] 🔥

Beyond the more substantive changes in those docs, the IASA 2.0 structure also changes several position titles and org relationships that other documents reference. Instead of reissuing all of those individually, this document provides one unified update to them 💅

This document updates RFCs 2028, 2418, 3005, 3710, 3929, 4633, and 6702 (citations in context below) to make those terminology and related changes. It also requests, with the authorization of the IAB, that the Informational RFC 3716 be made Historic (see Section 4). The sections that follow identify the details of the relevant documents and the required changes 🦋

2. Where Appropriate, Replacement of the IETF Executive Director Position with the Managing Director, IETF Secretariat 👑

Under the IASA 2.0 structure, most of the responsibilities of the former IETF Executive Director position have been assigned to a new position (or at least a new title): Managing Director, IETF Secretariat. The "Executive Director" title is now tied to different, and mostly new, responsibilities as an officer of the IETF Administration LLC. The new structural arrangements are described in [RFC8711], which is where you'll find the details ✨

This document applies that change to the following:

  • RFC 2028, "The Organizations Involved in the IETF Standards Process", [RFC2028], Section 3.3.
  • RFC 2418, "IETF Working Group Guidelines and Procedures", [RFC2418], Section 1.
  • RFC 3710, "An IESG Charter", [RFC3710], Section 2.
  • RFC 3929, "Alternative Decision Making Processes for Consensus-Blocked Decisions in the IETF", [RFC3929], Sections 4.1.1 and 4.3 (twice).
  • RFC 4633, "Experiment in Long-Term Suspensions From Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Mailing Lists", [RFC4633], Section 1.
  • RFC 6702, "Promoting Compliance with Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Disclosure Rules", [RFC6702], Section 5.

Note that the current description of the Internet Standards Process [RFC2026] does not require an update by this document for this purpose. The reason is that the reference to the IETF Executive Director in RFC 2026 was replaced by a document [RFC3979] that came before the current effort, and that document was in turn obsoleted by RFC 8179 [RFC8179] 🙈

3. Removal of the IETF Executive Director as an Option 🚫

Okay so in a few cases, it's no longer appropriate for either the Managing Director, IETF Secretariat (the former IETF Executive Director position) or the new IETF Executive Director (for the LLC) to perform a particular historical function. The relevant documents are updated to remove the IETF Executive Director from the list of people with specific responsibilities or authority. Those documents will not be updated to say "Managing Director, IETF Secretariat." Instead, the mention of the position will simply be dropped 💀

This document applies that change to the following:

  • RFC 3005, "IETF Discussion List Charter" [RFC3005], section titled "Charter for the IETF Discussion List". This document is modified to remove the authorization for the IETF Executive Director to restrict people from posting, etc.

4. Deprecated Documents 🧹

4.1. Documents Whose Context Is Changed by This Specification 🍓

Both of the documents that follow were obsoleted in 2017 by RFC 8179 [RFC8179], which changed mentions of the IETF Executive Director to point to the IETF Secretariat more generally.

4.2. General Description of the IETF Administrative Model 🧚

RFC 3716 [RFC3716] was a report from an IAB Advisory Committee that served as a starting point for the work that led to the original IASA structure. That report was an IAB document rather than an IETF one. The IAB approved a proposal to move RFC 3716 to Historic on March 6, 2019 [IAB-3716-Historic]. Historic vibes only 🕰️💜

Part 2 picks up with Security Considerations and the references, and the drama is not over yet 👀🌈

6.2. Informative References ✨

okay so the informative refs are the bonus reading list 📚 these aren't required to implement anything, but they're the receipts for the history, so here they are exactly as written:

[IAB-3716-Historic]
           Internet Architecture Board, "IAB Minutes 2019-03-06", 6
           March 2019, <https://www.iab.org/documents/minutes/
           minutes-2019/iab-minutes-2019-03-06/>.

[RFC2026]  Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision
           3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, DOI 10.17487/RFC2026, October 1996,
           <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2026>.

[RFC3716]  IAB Advisory Committee, "The IETF in the Large:
           Administration and Execution", RFC 3716,
           DOI 10.17487/RFC3716, March 2004,
           <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3716>.

[RFC3929]  Hardie, T., "Alternative Decision Making Processes for
           Consensus-Blocked Decisions in the IETF", RFC 3929,
           DOI 10.17487/RFC3929, October 2004,
           <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3929>.

[RFC3979]  Bradner, S., Ed., "Intellectual Property Rights in IETF
           Technology", RFC 3979, DOI 10.17487/RFC3979, March 2005,
           <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3979>.

[RFC4633]  Hartman, S., "Experiment in Long-Term Suspensions From
           Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Mailing Lists",
           RFC 4633, DOI 10.17487/RFC4633, August 2006,
           <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4633>.

[RFC4879]  Narten, T., "Clarification of the Third Party Disclosure
           Procedure in RFC 3979", RFC 4879, DOI 10.17487/RFC4879,
           April 2007, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4879>.

[RFC8179]  Bradner, S. and J. Contreras, "Intellectual Property
           Rights in IETF Technology", BCP 79, RFC 8179,
           DOI 10.17487/RFC8179, May 2017,
           <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8179>.

Acknowledgments 💖

Huge hugs to Brian Carpenter 🫶 His careful checking and identification of which documents did, and did not, need consideration was essential to this document in its current form. He also made several other significant contributions. Bob Hinden gave the document a careful read-through and made useful suggestions too. Beyond the people above, Alissa Cooper, Eliot Lear, Heather Flanagan (the RFC Series Editor), and the current membership of the IAB helped sort out the handling of RFC 3716. Absolutely iconic teamwork 👑

Contributors 🌸

Jason Livingood did the hard work of identifying the documents that required updating, and supplied a ton of the text used in this document. Main character energy 💅

Author's Address 🎀

John C Klensin (editor)
1770 Massachusetts Ave, Ste 322
Cambridge, MA 02140
United States of America

Phone: +1 617 245 1457
Email: john-ietf@jck.com
📦 where this page comes from