Internet Engineering Task Force B. Campbell, Ed. Internet-Draft Oracle Updates: 5727 (if approved) A. Cooper Intended status: Best Current Practice Cisco Expires: December 21, 2015 B. Leiba Huawei June 19, 2015 Improving the Organizational Flexibility of the SIP Change Process. draft-campbell-art-rfc5727-update-02 Abstract RFC 5727 defines several processes for the Real-time Applications and Infrastructure (RAI) area. These processes include the evolution of the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and related protocols, as well as the operation of the DISPATCH and SIPCORE working groups. This document updates RFC 5727 to allow flexibility for the area and working group structure, while preserving the SIP change processes. It also generalizes the DISPATCH working group processes so that they can be easily adopted by other working groups. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on December 21, 2015. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2015 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 Campbell, et al. Expires December 21, 2015 [Page 1] Internet-Draft SIP-Change Update June 2015 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 2. Dispatch-Style Working Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Decoupling the SIP-Change Process from the RAI Area . . . . . 4 4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 7.2. Informative Reverences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1. Introduction [RFC5727] describes processes for evolving and maintaining the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [RFC3261] and related technologies in the former Real-time Application and Infrastructure (RAI) area. These processes are collectively known as the "SIP Change Process". While areas do not normally have "charters" per se, RFC 5727 has effectively served as a charter for RAI. The language in RFC 5727 is tightly bound to the RAI area and to the the DISPATCH and SIPCORE working groups. At the time of this writing, the RAI area recently merged with the Applications (APP) area to form a new Applications and Real-Time (ART) area. This document updates RFC 5727 to remove its dependency on RAI and its working group structure. RFC 5727 specifies that the DISPATCH working group assesses potential new work for the area, and determines where such work should occur. DISPATCH does not itself take on such new work. The SIPCORE working group is responsible for maintenance of SIP. Other RAI working groups develop extensions to SIP that do not change the core protocol, new applications of SIP, and other technologies for interactive communication among humans. This document further generalizes the processes of the DISPATCH working group so that they can be applied to other areas, or to clusters of technologies within an area. Campbell, et al. Expires December 21, 2015 [Page 2] Internet-Draft SIP-Change Update June 2015 While the reorganization is expected to involve merging RAI with the Applications (APP) area and renaming the resulting area, the updates in this document do not depend on that. Rather, the authors seek to future-proof the SIP Change Process against future reorganizations. This document does not change any other aspect of RFC 5727. While areas and working groups may change over time, the rules and procedures for changing SIP and other RAI protocols remain the same, until such time that they are updated by future documents. 2. Dispatch-Style Working Groups The DISPATCH working group has proven successful at managing new work for the RAI area. Areas may choose to adopt DISPATCH-like procedures, either for an entire area, or for technology-clusters in an area or across areas. A "Dispatch-Style" working group operates according to procedures similar to those used for DISPATCH. The "Dispatch Style" includes the following essential elements: o The working group evaluates proposals for new work for an area, or for a well-defined technology cluster. It acts as a filter for the area or cluster to determine whether a proposal is a reasonable use of or addition to associated technologies. This determination may depend upon established criteria (for example, the SIP Change Process), the experience and expertise of the participants, or a combination of the two. o The dispatch-style working group determines an appropriate venue for the work. The venue could be an existing working group. If no appropriate group exist, it may develop a charter for a BoF, a new working group, or an exploratory group [RFC5111]. The working group may also determine that a proposal should not be acted upon at the time. o The dispatch-style working group does not complete the proposed work. It may, however, adopt milestones needed to properly dispatch the work. For example, it may produce charter text for a BoF or a new working group, an initial problem statement, or documentation about why certain work was not pursued. Nothing in this list prevents existing working groups from directly adopting new work that reasonably fits their charters. For borderline cases, the decision whether new work should start in a dispatch-style group, or in an existing group is a judgement call among the responsible Area Directors and chairs. Likewise, in cases where an area has multiple dispatch-style groups for different Campbell, et al. Expires December 21, 2015 [Page 3] Internet-Draft SIP-Change Update June 2015 purposes or technology clusters, the decision about which group will handle a particular proposal is a judgement call. The charter of a dispatch-style group should make that fact clear, either by referencing this document, or by directly describing similar procedures. 3. Decoupling the SIP-Change Process from the RAI Area This document clarifies that the SIP Change Process is not bound to any particular area or working group structure. All references to the RAI area in RFC 5727 should be interpreted as "the cluster of SIP and closely related application and infrastructure technologies, as well as other technologies designed primarily for interactive communication among humans." While the DISPATCH and SIPCORE working groups are expected to continue in their current capacities, nothing in the SIP Change Process prevents their responsibilities from being assigned to other working groups in the future. All other aspects of the SIP-Change process are to continue as described in RFC 5727. 4. IANA Considerations This document makes no requests to IANA. 5. Security Considerations This document discusses the roles and responsibilities of areas and working groups. It does not create new security considerations in the conventional sense. However, organizational structures come with their own security considerations. A dispatch-stye working group has the potential to concentrate the control of work for an area or cluster in the hands of a much smaller set of people than those in the whole area or cluster. This could have the effect of a "Denial of Service Attack" against the area or cluster. Likewise, such a concentration could reduce the quality of decisions about new work. Care must be taken to avoid this risk. The best mitigation is active participation in the group by as many people in the area or cluster as possible. Campbell, et al. Expires December 21, 2015 [Page 4] Internet-Draft SIP-Change Update June 2015 6. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank all the previous authors of the SIP Change Process for their contributions. Jon Peterson, Cullen Jennings, and Robert Sparks authored RFC 5727. That RFC obsoleted [RFC3427], which was in turn written by Allison Mankin, Scott Bradner, Rohan Mahy, Dean Willis, Brian Rosen, and Joerg Ott. The authors additionally thank the present and past chairs of DISPATCH and SIPCORE, as well as all the participants in the RAI area since its inception. 7. References 7.1. Normative References [RFC5727] Peterson, J., Jennings, C., and R. Sparks, "Change Process for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the Real- time Applications and Infrastructure Area", BCP 67, RFC 5727, March 2010. 7.2. Informative Reverences [RFC3261] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston, A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E. Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261, June 2002. [RFC3427] Mankin, A., Bradner, S., Mahy, R., Willis, D., Ott, J., and B. Rosen, "Change Process for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)", RFC 3427, December 2002. [RFC5111] Aboba, B. and L. Dondeti, "Experiment in Exploratory Group Formation within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)", RFC 5111, January 2008. Authors' Addresses Ben Campbell (editor) Oracle Email: ben@nostrum.com ALissa Cooper Cisco Email: alcoop@cisco.com Campbell, et al. Expires December 21, 2015 [Page 5] Internet-Draft SIP-Change Update June 2015 Barry Leiba Huawei Email: barryleiba@computer.org Campbell, et al. Expires December 21, 2015 [Page 6]